THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
ERNEST  CARROLL  MOORE 


BY 

BARRETT    WENDELL 

PROFESSOR   OF    ENGLISH    AT    HARVARD   COLLEGE 
AND 

CHESTER  NOYES   GREENOUGH 

FORMERLY   INSTRUCTOR    IN    ENGLISH    AT   HARVARD   COLLEGE 


NEW   YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1909 


COPYRIGHT,  1904,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


PS 


COA, 
PREFACE 


When  it  was  proposed  that  Wendell's  Literary  History 
of  America  should  be  reprinted  in  a  school  edition,  it  was 
clear  to  us  that  for  such  use .  the  book  needed  thorough 
revision.  Many  passages,  which  properly  found  place  in 
a  book  intended  for  general  reading,  involved  expressions 
of  opinion  obviously  unsuitable  for  schools.  In  prepar 
ing  this  school  version,  our  object  has  accordingly  been 
to  omit  needless  or  debatable  matter,  but  to  preserve  the 
general  outline  and  all  available  portions  of  the  original 
work. 

To  aid  us  in  our  task,  we  submitted  the  Literary  His 
tory,  chapter  by  chapter,  to  an  advanced  class  of  students 
at  Harvard  College,  whom  we  encouraged  to  criticise  it 
minutely  in  writing.  The  energy  and  good  sense  with 
which  they  did  so  have  enabled  us  to  correct  many  slight 
errors,  and,  at  the  same  time,  have  strengthened  our 
conviction  that  the  earlier  book  was  historically  sound. 
We  cannot  too  heartily  acknowledge  our  debt  to  this 
critical  collaboration  of  our  pupils. 

B.  W. 

C.  N.  G. 


1326986 


GENERAL   REFERENCES 


(A)  ENGLISH  HISTORY 

S.  R.  GARDINER,  A  Student's  History  of  England,  London  and  New 
York :   Longmans,  1900. 


(B)  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

STOPFORD  BROOKE,  Primer  of  English  Literature,  New  York :     Mac- 

millan,  1889. 
HENRY  CRAIK,  English  Prose,  5  vols.,  New  York:   Macmillan,  1893- 

1896. 
FREDERICK    RYLAND,    Chronological   Outlines  of  English   Literature, 

New  York:   Macmillan,  1896. 
T.  H.  WARD,  English  Poets,  4  vols.,  New  York:   Macmillan,   1896- 

1900. 

(C)  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

EDWARD  CHANNING,  A  Student's  History  of  the  United  States,  New 

York :   Macmillan,  1899. 
EDWARD  CHANNING  and  A.  B.  HART,  Guide  to  the  Study  of  American 

History,  Boston  :   Ginn,  1896.     Indispensable. 

A.  B.   HART,  Formation  of  the  Union,  1750-1829,  New  York:    Long 
mans,  1897. 
R.   G.  THWAITES,    The  Colonies,    1492-1750,   New  York:    Longmans, 

1897. 
WOODROW  WILSON,  Division  and  Reunion,   1829-1889,  New  York: 

Longmans,  1898. 
JUSTIN  WlNSOR,   Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America,  8  vols., 

Boston :  Houghton,    1886-1889.       Indispensable  for  the  advanced 

student.     Not  a  consecutive  history. 


viii  General  References 


(D)  AMERICAN  LITERATURE 
I.   Literary  Histories 

W.  C.  BRONSON,  A  Short  History  of  American  Literature,  Boston : 
Heath,  1902. 

JOHN  NICHOL,  American  Literature,  Edinburgh:   Black,  1882. 

H.  S.  PANCOAST,  Introduction  to  American  Literature,  New  York  : 
Holt,  1898. 

C.  F.  RICHARDSON,  American  Literature,  2  vols.,  New  York:  Put 
nam,  1887. 

W.  P.  TRENT,  A  History  of  American  Literature,  New  York:  Apple- 
ton,  1903. 

E.  C.  STEDMAN,  Poets  of  America,  Boston:   Houghton,  1885. 

M.  C.  TYLER,  A  History  of  American  Literature  during  the  Colonial 
Time,  2  vols.,  New  York:  Putnam,  1897. 

M.  C.  TYLER,  The  Literary  History  of  the  American  Revolution,  2 
vols.,  New  York  :•  Putnam,  1897. 

2.    Collections  of  Extracts 

G.   R.   CARPENTER,  American  Prose,    New    York:    Macmillan,   1903. 

E.  A.  and  G.  L.  DUYCKINCK,  Cyclopaedia  of  American  Literature,  2 
vols.,  New  York,  1855. 

R.  W.  GRISWOLD,  The  Poets  and  Poetry  of  America,  Philadelphia, 
1842. 

R.  W.  GRISWOLD,  Prose  Writers  of  America,  Philadelphia,  1847. 

A.  B.  HART,  American  History  told  by  Contemporaries,  4  vols.,  New 
York:  Macmillan,  1897-1901.  Particularly  useful  for  the  seven 
teenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 

E.  C.  STEDMAN,  An  American  Anthology,  Boston :  Houghton,  1900. 
Very  good ;  excellent  short  biographies. 

E.  C.  STEDMAN  and  E.  M.  HUTCHINSON,  Library  of  American  Liter 
ature,  ii  vols.,  New  York,  1888-1890.  The  best  collection  of  its 
kind.  The  indexes  and  biographies  are  very  well  made. 

3.  Bibliographies 

P.  K.  FOLEY,  American  Authors  [1795-1895]  ;  a  Bibliography  of  First 
and  Notable  Editions  chronologically  arranged,  with  Notes.  Boston : 
Privately  printed,  1897. 


General  References  ix 

JOSEPH  SABIN,  Bibliotheca  Americana  ;  a  Dictionary  of  Books  relating 
to  America,  20  vols.,  New  York:  Sabin,  1858-1892. 

S.  L.  WHITCOMB,  Chronological  Outlines  of  American  Literature,  New 
York  :  Macmillan,  1894.  Very  useful. 

In  the  reference  lists  at  the  beginnings  of  chapters,  the  following 
abbreviations  are  used:  "AML"  for  the  " American  Men  of  Letters" 
series;  "AS"  for  the  "American  Statesmen"  series;  "BB"  for  the 
"Beacon  Biographies ";"  EML  "  for  the  "English  Men  of  Letters" 
series  ;  "GW  "  for  the  "  Great  Writers  "  series. 

Asterisks  indicate  the  best  editions  and  most  useful  sources  of  infor 
mation. 


CONTENTS 


BOOK  I 

THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  English  History  from  1600  to  1700 n 

II.  English  Literature  from  1600  to  1700 18 

III.  American  History  from  1600  to  1700 23 

IV.  Literature  in  America  from  1600  to  1700  .      .      .       .31 
V.  Cotton  Mather 42 

VI.  Summary 50 


BOOK   II 

THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 

I.  English  History  from  1700  to  1800 53 

II.  English  Literature  from  1700  to  1800         ....  55 

III.  American  History  from  1700  to  1800          ....  69 

IV.  Literature  in  America  from  1700  to  1776   ....  71 
V.  Jonathan  Edwards 77 

VI.  Benjamin  Franklin 83 

VII.  The  American  Revolution          92 

VIII.  Literature  in  America  from  1776  to  1800      ....  98 

IX.  Summary no 


xii  Contents 


BOOK  III 
THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  English  History  from  1800  to  1900 113 

II.  English  Literature  from  1800  to  1900 118 

III.  American  History  from  1800  to  1900 121 

IV.  Literature  in  America  from  1800  to  1900      .  .125 


BOOK  IV 

LITERATURE  IN  THE  MIDDLE  STATES  FROM  1798  TO  1857 

I.  Charles  Brock  den  Brown 129 

II.  Washington  Irving 136 

III.  James  Fenimore  Cooper 148 

IV.  William  Cullen  Bryant 158 

V.  Edgar  Allan  Poe 169 

VI.  The  Knickerbocker  School 179 


BOOK   V 

THE  RENAISSANCE  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

I.  Some  General  Characteristics  of  New  England         .      .  189 

II.  The  New  England  Orators 201 

III.  The  New  England  Scholars  and  Historians         .      .      .  210 

IV.  Unitarianism 229 

V.  Transcendentalism 239 

VI.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 254 

VII.  The  Lesser  Men  of  Concord     .       .      .      .    •  .      .       .  266 


Contents  xiii 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

VIII.  The  Antislavery  Movement 275 

IX.  John  Greenleaf  Whittier 289 

X.  The  Atlantic  Monthly 298 

XI.  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow          305 

XII.  James  Russell  Lowell 315 

XIII.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 327 

XIV.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 34° 


BOOK  VI 
THE  REST  OF  THE  STORY 

I.  New  York  Since  1857 355 

II.  Walt  Whitman 371 

III.  Later  New  England 379 

IV.  The  Novel:  Ho  wells,  James,  and  Crawford         .       .       .395 
V.  The  South 399 

VI.  The  West ,.       .  412 

VII.  Mark  Twain 421 

VIII.  Conclusion 425 

INDEX 437 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

John  Winthrop 26 

Samuel  Sewall 28 

Cotton  Mather 45 

Jonathan  Edwards 78 

Benjamin  Franklin 84 

Timothy  Dwight 102 

Joel  Barlow 106 

Charles  Brockden  Brown 130 

Washington  Irving 138 

Sunnyside,  Irving's  Home  at  Tarrytown 139 

James  Fenimore  Cooper 150 

William  Cullen  Bryant 160 

Edgar  Allan  Poe 1 70 

Nathaniel  Parker  Willis 182 

Daniel  Webster 204 

Edward  Everett 206 

George  Ticknor 216 

William  Hickling  Prescott ,221 

Francis  Parkman 226 

William  Ellery  Channing 234 

Margaret  Fuller 247 

Brook  Farm 249 

George  Ripley 252 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 258 


xvi  List  of  Illustrations 


PAGE 


Amos  Bronson  Alcott 267 

Henry  David  Thoreau 269 

William  Lloyd  Garrison 278 

Harriet  Beecher  Stowe 284 

John  Greenleaf  Whittier  .      .       . 291 

James  Thomas  Fields 302 

Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow 306 

Longfellow's  Home,  Craigie  House,  Cambridge       ....  308 

Longfellow  in  his  Library 312 

James  Russell  Lowell 317 

Elmwood,    Cambridge,    Mass.,    Birthplace   of   James   Russell 

Lowell 318 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 328 

Holmes's  Birthplace,  Cambridge 329 

Commencement  Day  at  Harvard  in  Holmes's  Time       .      .       .331 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne 342 

An  Early  Home  of  Hawthorne,  Old  Manse,  Concord   .       .       .  343 
Wayside,  Concord,  Home  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne        .      .       -347 

Walt  Whitman 373 

Samuel  Langhorne  Clemens     .      .      . 422 


A   HISTORY   OF 
LITERATURE   IN   AMERICA 


INTRODUCTION 

LITERATURE,  the  lasting  expression  in  words  of  the 
meaning  of  life,  is  of  all  fine  arts  the  most  national:  each  Literature 
language  grows  to  associate  with  itself  the  ideals  and  the  1! 
aspirations  and  the  fates  of  those  peoples  with  whose  life 
it  is  inextricably  intermingled. 

Languages  grow  and  live  and  die  in  accordance  with 
laws  of  their  own.  This  English  of  ours  may  be  taken  as 
typical.  Originating  from  the  union  and  confusion  of 
older  tongues,  it  has  struggled  through  the  infantile  diseases 
of  dialect,  each  of  which  has  left  some  trace,  until  long  ago 
it  not  only  had  become  the  sole  means  of  expression  for 
millions  of  people,  but  also  had  assumed  the  form  which 
now  makes  its  literature  in  some  respects  the  most  remark 
able  of  modern  times.  Whatever  else  it  may  be,  this  lit 
erature  is  the  most  spontaneous,  the  least  formal  and  con 
scious,  the  most  instinctively  creative,  the  most  free  from 
excess  of  culture,  and  so,  seemingly,  the  most  normal.  Its 
earliest  forms  were  artless;  songs  and  sayings  began  to 
stray  from  oral  tradition  into  written  record,  laws  were 
sometimes  phrased  and  chronicles  made  in  the  robust 
young  terms  which  carried  meaning  to  unlearned  folk  as 
well  as  to  those  versed  in  more  polite  tongues,  such  as 
French  or  Latin.  Presently  came  forms  of  literature 
which,  at  least  comparatively,  were  artistic.  The  earliest 
of  these  which  has  lasted  in  general  literary  memory 
reached  its  height  in  the  works  of  Chaucer  (about  1340- 


2  Introduction 

1400).  After  his  time  came  a  century  or  more  of  civil 
disturbance,  when  Englishmen  were  too  busy  with  wars  of 
the  Roses  and  the  like  for  further  progress  in  the  arts  of 
peace.  Then,  with  the  new  national  integrity  which  grew 
under  the  Tudors,  came  a  stronger  literary  impulse,  un 
surpassed  in  vigorous  spontaneity. 

In  1575  there  was  hardly  such  a  thing  as  modern  Eng 
lish  literature;  in  1625  that  great  body  of  English  litera 
ture  which  we  call  Elizabethan  was  complete.  Fifty 
years  had  given  us  not  only  incomparable  lyric  verse  and 
the  final  version  of  the  English  Bible  (1611),  but  the  works 
too  of  Spenser  (1552-1599),  of  Shakspere  (1564-1616)  and 
the  other  great  dramatists,  of  Hooker  (1553-1600),  of 
Ralegh  (1552-1618),  of  Bacon  (1561-1626),  and  of  all 
their  fellows.  Among  these,  of  course,  Shakspere  stands 
supreme,  just  as  Chaucer  stood  among  his  contempo 
raries,  whose  names  are  now  forgotten  by  all  but  special 
scholars;  and  one  feature  of  Shakspere's  supremacy  is 
that  his  literary  career  was  normal.  Whoever  has  followed 
it  from  his  experimental  beginning,  through  the  ripeness 
to  which  he  brought  comedy,  history,  and  tragedy  alike, 
to  its  placid  close  amid  the  decadent  formality  of  another 
established  literary  tradition,  will  have  learned  something 
more  than  even  the  great  name  of  Shakspere  includes, — 
he  will  have  had  a  glimpse  of  the  natural  law  which  not 
only  governed  the  course  of  Shakspere  himself  and  of 
Elizabethan  literature,  but  has  always  governed  the 
growth,  development,  and  decline  of  all  literature  and  of 
all  fine  art.  Lasting  literature  has  its  birth  when  a  crea- 
tiye  imPulseJ  which  we  may  call  imaginative,  moves  men 
to  break  the  shackles  of  tradition,  making  things  which 
have  not  been  before;  sooner  or  later  this  impulse  is 


Introduction  3 

checked  by  a  growing  sense  of  the  inexorable  limits  of 
fact  and  of  language;  and  then  creative  imagination  sinks 
into  some  new  tradition,  to  be  broken  only  when,  in  time 
to  come,  the  vital  force  of  imagination  shall  revive. 

As  English  literature  has  grown  into  maturity,  the  con 
stant  working  of  this  law  has  become  evident.  The  first 
impulse,  we  have  seen,  gave  us  the  work  of  Chaucer;  the 
second,  which  came  only  after  generations,  gave  us  the 
Elizabethan  lyrics  and  dramas,  Spenser  and  Shakspere, 
and  the  final  form  of  the  English  Bible.  This  last,  prob 
ably  the  greatest  masterpiece  of  translation  in  the  world, 
has  exercised  on  the  thought  and  the  language  of  English- 
speaking  people  an  influence  which  cannot  be  overesti 
mated.  As  a  translation,  however,  it  rather  indicates  how 
eager  Elizabethan  Englishmen  were  to  know  the  splendors 
of  world-old  literature,  than  reveals  a  spontaneous  impulse 
towards  native  expression.  Apart  from  this  supreme 
work,  the  fully  developed  literature  of  the  Elizabethan 
period  took  on  the  whole  the  form  of  poetry;  that  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  on  the  other  hand,  took  on  the  whole 
the  form  of  prose;  and  as  English  prose  literature  has 
developed,  no  phase  of  it  has  developed  more  highly  than 
its  fiction.  This  general  statement  is  perhaps  enough  to 
indicate  an  important  tendency.  The  first  form  in  which 
any  normal  literature  develops  is  instinctively  poetic ;  prose 
comes  later;  and  prose  fiction,  that  intricate  combination 
of  poetic  impulse  with  prosaic  form,  comes  later  still.  In 
1625  English  literature  was  fully  developed  only  in  the 
forms  of  lyric  and  dramatic  poetry. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  America  came  into  existence.  America 
It  began  with  a  number  of  mutually  independent  settle 
ments,  each  of  which  grew  into  something  like  political 


4  Introduction 

integrity.  When  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
was  adopted,  the  sentiment  of  local  sovereignty  in  the  sepa 
rate  States  was  accordingly  too  strong  to  allow  the  federal 
power  to  assume  an  independent  name.  As  the  power  thus 
founded  developed  into  one  of  the  most  considerable  in 
modern  history,  its  citizens  found  themselves  driven  by  this 
fact  of  national  namelessness  to  a  custom  which  is  often 
held  presumptuous;  they  called  themselves  Americans, 
a  name  geographically  proper  to  all  natives  of  the  Western 
Hemisphere,  from  Canada  to  Patagonia.  By  this  time 
the  custom  thus  established  has  given  to  the  name  "Amer 
ica"  the  sense  in  which  we  generally  use  it.  The  America 
with  whose  literary  history  we  are  to  be  concerned  is  only 
that  part  of  our  continent  which  is  dominated  by  the  Eng 
lish-speaking  people  now  subject  to  the  government  of  the 
United  States. 

A  literary  history  of  America  should  therefore  concern 
itself  with  such  lasting  expressions  in  words  of  the  mean 
ing  of  life  as  this  people  has  uttered  during  its  three  cen 
turies  of  existence;  or,  in  simpler  terms,  with  what 
America  has  contributed  to  the  literature  of  the  English 
language. 

In  the  history  of  America  each  century  has  traits  of  its 
own.  In  1600  there  was  no  such  thing  as  English-speak 
ing  America;  in  1700  all  but  one  of  the  colonies  which 
have  developed  into  the  United  States  were  finally  estab 
lished,  and  the  English  conquest  of  the  middle  colonies 
founded  by  the  Dutch  or  the  Swedes  was  virtually  com 
plete.  In  1700  every  one  of  the  American  colonies  was 
loyally  subject  to  the  government  of  King  William  III; 
in  1800  there  remained  throughout  them  no  vestige  of 
British  authority.  In  1800,  the  last  complete  year  of  the 


Introduction  5 

presidency  of  John  Adams,  the  United  States  were  still  an 
experiment  in  government,  of  which  the  result  remained 
in  doubt;  the  year  1900  found  them  a  power  which  seems 
as  established  and  as  important  as  any  in  the  world. 
Clearly  these  three  centuries  of  American  history  are  at 
kast  as  distinct  as  three  generations  in  any  race. 

Again,  the  typical  American  character  of  the  seventeenth  The 
century  differed  from  that  of  the  eighteenth,  and  that  of 
the  eighteenth  from  that  of  the  nineteenth,  as  distinctly 
as  the  historical  limits  of  these  centuries  differed  one  from 
the  other.  In  the  seventeenth  century  the  typical  Ameri 
can,  a  man  of  English-speaking  race,  seemed  to  himself  an 
immigrant  hardly  at  home  in  the  remote  regions  where  his 
exiled  life  was  to  be  passed.  In  the  eighteenth  century 
the  typical  American,  still  English  at  heart,  was  so  far  in 
descent  from  the  immigration  that  almost  unawares  his 
personal  ties  with  the  mother  country  had  been  broken. 
In  the  nineteenth  century  the  typical  American,  politically 
as  well  as  personally  independent  of  the  old  world,  and 
English  only  so  far  as  the  traditions  inseparable  from  an 
cestral  law  and  language  must  keep  him  so,  has  often  felt 
or  fancied  himself  less  at  one  with  contemporary  Eng 
lishmen  than  with  Europeans  of  other  and  essentially 
foreign  blood. 

Yet  we  Americans  are  English-speaking  still;  the  ideals  The  ideals 
which  underlie  our  conscious   life   must  always   be  the  of  Rl*ht 

and  of 

ideals  which  underlie  the  conscious  life  of  the  mother  Rights, 
country.  Morally  and  religiously  these  ideals  are  im 
mortally  consecrated  in  King  James's  version  of  the 
Bible;  legally  and  politically  they  are  grouped  in  the  Com 
mon  Law  of  England.  Morally,  these  ideals  are  com 
prised  in  a  profound  conviction  that  we  are  bound  to  do 


6  Introduction 

right;  legally  they  may  be  summarized  in  the  statement 
that  we  are  bound  to  maintain  our  rights.  But  the  rights 
contemplated  by  our  ancestral  law  are  not  vague  things, 
which  people  imagine,  on  general  principles,  that  they 
ought  to  have;  they  are  privileges  and  practices  which 
custom  and  experience  have  proved  favorable  to  the  wel 
fare  of  people  like  ourselves. 

Three  Recurring  to  our  division  of  native  Americans  into  the 
,itera-  three  types  which  correspond  with  the  three  centuries  of 
American  history,  we  perceive  that  only  the  last,  the  Ameri 
cans  of  the  nineteenth  century,  have  produced  literature  of 
any  importance.  The  greater  part  of  our  study  must  con 
sequently  concern  the  century  lately  at  an  end.  For  all 
that,  the  two  earlier  centuries  were  not  sterile ;  rather  indeed 
the  amount  of  native  American  writing  which  each  pro 
duced  is  surprising.  What  is  more,  American  writings 
of  the  eighteenth  century  differed  from  those  of  the  seven 
teenth  quite  as  distinctly  as  did  American  history  or  Ameri 
can  character.  Of  both  centuries,  meanwhile,  two  things 
are  true:  neither  in  itself  presents  much  literary  variety, 
and  most  of  what  was  published  in  each  has  already  been 
forgotten.  Our  task,  accordingly,  is  to  glance  at  the  liter 
ary  history  of  America  during  the  seventeenth  century  and 
the  eighteenth,  and  to  study  that  literary  history  during 
the  past  hundred  years. 

Taking  each  century  in  turn,  we  may  conveniently  begin 
by  reminding  ourselves  briefly  of  what  it  contributed  to  the 
history  and  to  the  literature  of  England.  With  this  in 
mind  we  may  better  understand  a  similar  but  more  minute 
study  of  America  during  each  of  the  three  periods  in  ques 
tion.  When  we  come  to  the  last  and  most  important  of 
these,  the  nineteenth  century,  we  may  find  ourselves  a 


Introduction  7 

little  troubled  by  the  fact  that  so  much  of  it  is  almost  con 
temporary  with  ourselves.  Contemporary  life  is  never 
quite  ripe  for  history;  facts  cannot  at  once  range  them 
selves  in  true  perspective;  and  when  these  facts  are  living 
men  and  women,  there  is  a  touch  of  inhumanity  in  writing 
of  them  as  if  we  had  already  had  the  misfortune  to  lose 
them.  Yet  write  of  them  we  must,  with  what  approach 
to  certainty  contemporary  judgment  may  make,  in  order 
that  by  carrying  our  record  through  the  year  1900  we  may 
try  to  discern  what  America  has  so  far  contributed  to  the 
literature  of  our  ancestral  English  language. 


BOOK    I 
THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 


BOOK  I 
THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

I 

ENGLISH  HISTORY  FROM  1600  TO  1700 

REFERENCES 

Gardiner,  Chapters  xxx-xliii.  A  list  of  books  for  further  study  of  this 
period  is  given  by  Gardiner,  p.  577;  for  our  purposes,  however,  Gardi 
ner's  own  chapters  are  sufficient. 

IN  1600  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth  (1558-1603)*  was  xheSover- 
drawing  to  its  close.  After  her  came  the  pragmatic  Scotch 
man,  James  I  (1603-1625).  After  him  came  Charles  I 
(1625-1649),  whose  tragic  fate  has  combined  with  the 
charm  of  his  portraits  to  make  him  at  least  a  pathetically 
romantic  hero.  Then  came  Cromwell  (1649-1658),  as 
sternly  sovereign  in  his  fleeting  Commonwealth  as  ever 
king  was  in  monarchy.  Then  came  Charles  II  (1660- 
1685)  with  all  the  license  of  the  Restoration;  then 
James  II  (1685-1689),  displaced  by  the  revolution  which 
broke  out  in  1688;  finally  (1689-1702)  came  the  Dutch 
Prince  of  Orange  with  his  English  Queen,  Mary  (1689- 
1694).  Seven  sovereigns  in  all  we  find,  if  we  count  Will 
iam  and  Mary  together;  and  of  these  only  six  were  royal. 
Of  the  six  royalties,  four  were  Stuarts,  who  came  in  the 

*  The  dates  after  the  names  of  sovereigns  indicate  the  limits  not  of 
their  lives  but  of  their  reigns. 

II 


12 


The  Seventeenth  Century 


middle  of  the  list;  and  the  Stuart  dynasty  was  broken 
Cromwell,  mid  way  by  Cromwell,  the  one  English  sovereign  not  royal. 

Literally,  then,  Cromwell  is  the  central  figure  of  English 
history  during  the  seventeenth  century.  Love  him  or 
hate  him,  reverence  or  detest  his  memory,  one  fact  you 
must  grant :  never  before  in  English  history  had  men  seen 
dominant  the  type  of  which  he  is  the  great  representative; 
never  since  his  time  have  they  again  seen  that  dominant 
type,  now  vanished  with  the  world  which  brought  it  forth, 
— the  type  of  the  dominant  Puritan. 

The  Puritan  character,  of  course,  is  too  permanently 
English  to  be  confined  to  any  single  period  of  English 
history.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  however,  Puritanism 
for  a  while  acquired  the  unique  importance  of  national 
dominance,  which  it  proved  politically  unable  to  maintain 
beyond  the  lifetime  of  its  chief  exponent.  A  religious  sys 
tem,  one  generally  thinks  it;  and  rightly,  for  it  was  pro 
foundly  actuated  by  conscious  religious  motives,  and  by 
passionate  devotion  to  that  system  of  Christian  theology 
which  is  known  as  Calvinism.  A  political  movement,  too, 
it  often  seems ;  and  rightly,  for  never  in  the  course  of  Eng 
lish  history  have  native  Englishmen  so  striven  to  alter  the 
form  and  the  course  of  constitutional  development.  In 
such  a  study  as  ours  it  has  both  aspects;  the  dominance  of 
Puritanism  may  best  be  thought  of  as  the  period  when  for 
a  little  while  the  moral  and  religious  ideals  which  underlie 
our  language  were  uppermost,  when  for  once  the  actuating 
impulse  of  authority  was  rather  that  the  will  of  God  should 
be  done  on  earth  than  that  any  custom — however  fortified 
and  confirmed  by  the  experience  formulated  in  the  Com 
mon  Law — should  for  its  own  sake  be  maintained. 

That  the  will  of  God  should  be  done,  on  earth  as  it  is  in 


Puritan 
ism. 


English  History— 1600  to  1700  13 

Heaven,  no  good  man  will  ever  deny.  What  the  will  of 
God  is,  on  the  other  hand,  when  directly  concerned  with 
the  matters  of  this  world,  even  good  Englishmen  cannot 
always  agree.  Among  the  Puritans  themselves  there  was 
plenty  of  dissension,  but  one  thing  seems  fairly  sure, — no 
good  Puritan  questioned  the  truth  of  Calvinism.  To  un 
derstand  Puritanism,  in  England  and  in  America  alike, 
we  must  therefore  remind  ourselves  of  what  Calvinistic 
theology  taught. 

In  the  beginning,  the  Puritans  held,  God  created  man, 
responsible  to  Him,  with  perfect  freedom  of  will.  Adam, 
in  the  fall,  exerted  his  will  in  opposition  to  the  will  of  God ; 
thereby  Adam  and  all  his  posterity  merited  eternal  punish-  Calvinism, 
ment.  As  a  mark  of  that  punishment  they  lost  the  power 
of  exerting  their  will  in  harmony  with  the  will  of  God, 
without  losing  their  hereditary  responsibility  to  Him.  But 
God,  in  His  infinite  mercy,  was  pleased  to  mitigate  His 
justice.  Through  the  mediation  of  Christ,  certain  human 
beings,  chosen  at  God's  pleasure,  might  be  relieved  of  the 
just  penalty  of  sin,  and  received  into  everlasting  salvation. 
These  were  the  elect ;  none  others  could  be  saved,  nor  could 
any  acts  of  the  elect  impair  their  salvation.  Now,  there 
were  no  outward  and  visible  marks  by  which  the  elect 
might  be  known;  there  was  a  fair  chance  that  any  human 
being  to  whom  the  gospel  was  brought  might  be  of  the 
number.  The  thing  which  most  vitally  concerned  every 
man  was  accordingly  to  discover  whether  he  were  elect, 
and  so  free  from  the  just  penalty  of  sin.  The  test  of  elec 
tion  was  ability  to  exert  the  will  in  true  harmony  with  the 
will  of  God;  whoever  could  willingly  do  right  had  a 
fair  ground  for  hope  that  he  should  be  saved.  But  even 
the  elect  were  infected  with  the  hereditary  sin  of  humanity; 


14  The  Seventeenth  Century 

and,  besides,  no  wile  of  the  Devil  was  more  frequent  than 
that  which  deceived  men  into  believing  themselves  regen 
erated  when  in  truth  they  were  not.  The  task  of  assuring 
one's  self  of  election  could  end  only  with  life, — a  life  of 
passionate  aspirations,  ecstatic  enthusiasms,  profound 
discouragements.  Above  all,  men  must  never  forget  that 
the  true  will  of  God  was  revealed,  directly  or  by  implica 
tion,  only  and  wholly  in  Scripture;  incessant  study  of  Scrip 
ture  was  the  sole  means  by  which  any  man  could  assure 
himself  that  his  will  was  really  exerting  itself,  through  the 
mediatory  power  of  Christ,  in  true  harmony  with  the  will 
of  God. 

Calvinism  Calvinism  this  creed  is  commonly  called,  in  memory  of 
Evolu-  J°hn  Calvin  (1509-1564),  the  French  reformer,  who  has 
tion.  been  its  chief  modern  exponent;  but  perhaps  we  might 

better  call  it  the  system  of  Saint  Augustine.  Both  Augus 
tine  and  Calvin  are  remembered  chiefly,  perhaps  wholly,  as 
theologians,  and  seem  intangibly  remote  from  the  workaday 
life  of  this  age,  whose  most  characteristic  energies  are  de 
voted  to  scientific  research.  Yet,  strangely  enough,  the 
conceptions  which  underlie  the  most  popular  scientific 
philosophy  of  our  own  time  have  much  in  common  with 
those  which  actuated  both  Augustine  and  Calvin.  Earthly 
life,  the  modern  evolutionists  hold,  consists  in  a  struggle  for 
existence  wherein  only  the  fittest  can  survive.  In  the  days 
when  Calvin  pondered  on  the  eternities,  and  still  more  in 
those  tragic  days  of  toppling  empire  when  Augustine  strove 
to  imprison  divine  truth  within  the  limits  of  earthly  lan 
guage,  science  was  still  to  come.  But  what  Augustine  and 
Calvin  saw,  in  the  human  affairs  whence  each  inferred  the 
systems  of  Heaven  and  Hell,  was  really  what  the  modern 
evolutionists  perceive  in  every  aspect  of  Nature.  Total 


English  History— 1600  to  1700          15 

depravity  is  only  a  theological  name  for  that  phase  of  life 
which  moderns  name  the  struggle  for  existence;  and  like 
wise  election  is  only  a  theological  name  for  what  our  newer 
fashion  calls  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

Now,  any  struggle  is  bound  to  be  at  its  fiercest  where 
the  struggling  forces  are  most  concentrated.  In  human 
affairs,  both  good  and  evil  struggle  hardest  where  human 
beings  are  most  densely  congregated.  Augustine  wrote 
in  a  world  still  formally  dominated  by  that  imperial  power 
of  Rome  whose  health  and  strength  were  gone.  Calvin 
wrote  in  the  populous  Europe  of  the  Renaissance,  where 
the  whole  system  of  mediaeval  life  was  doomed,  and  where 
the  pressure  of  economic  fact  was  already  forcing  the  more 
adventurous  spirits  of  every  European  race  to  explore  our 
Western  Hemisphere.  Noble,  too,  though  we  may  find 
the  traditions  of  that  merry  old  England,  which  was  so 
vital  under  Queen  Elizabeth,  which  faded  under  the  first 
two  Stuarts,  and  which  vanished  in  the  smoke  of  the  Civil 
Wars,  the  plain  records,  both  of  history  and  of  literature, 
show  it  to  have  been  a  dense,  wicked  old  world,  whose 
passions  ran  high  and  deep,  and  whose  vices  and  crimes, 
big  as  its  brave  old  virtues,  were  such  as  to  make  the  grim 
dogmas  of  the  Puritans  seem  to  many  earnest  minds  the 
only  explanation  of  so  godless  a  fact  as  human  life. 

God's  will  be  done  on  earth,  then,  the  Puritans  cried,  Puritan 
honestly  conceiving  this  divine  will  to  demand  the  political 
dominance  of  God's  elect.  The  society  over  which  they 
believed  that  these  elect  should  make  themselves  politically 
dominant  had  all  the  complexity  which  must  develop  itself 
during  centuries  of  national  and  social  growth;  and  this 
growth,  fortified  by  the  unwritten  Common  Law  of  Eng 
land,  had  taken  through  the  centuries  an  earthly  course  at 


16  The  Seventeenth  Century 

variance  with  what  the  Puritans  held  to  be  their  divinely 
sanctioned  politics.  Towards  the  end  of  Cromwell's 
dominance  they  tried  to  mend  matters  by  giving  England 
a  written  constitution.  In  many  respects  this  Instru 
ment  of  Government  seems  theoretically  better  than 
the  older  system  which  had  grown  under  the  unwritten 
Common  Law,  and  which  since  Cromwell's  time  has  de 
veloped  into  the  Parliamentary  government  now  control 
ling  the  British  Empire.  The  Instrument  of  Government, 
however,  had  a  mortal  weakness:  it  was  not  historically 
continuous  with  the  past ;  and  this  was  enough  to  prevent 
any  historical  continuity  with  the  future.  The  struggle 
for  political  existence  in  England  was  inevitably  fatal  to 
principles  and  ideals  so  little  rooted  in  national  life  as  those 
which  the  Puritans  formulated.  So  in  England,  after  the 
momentary  irruption  of  dominant  Puritanism,  the  old 
Common  Law  surged  back;  and  it  has  flowed  on  to  the 
present  day,  the  stronger  if  not  the  nobler  of  the  two  ideals 
of  our  race. 

The  records  which  remain  to  us  of  Elizabethan  England, 
and  of  the  England  which  finally  broke  into  civil  war,  seem 
to  concern  men  of  a  remote  past.  Take,  for  example, 
the  adventurer,  Ralegh;  the  soldier  and  courtier,  Essex; 
and,  a  little  later,  that  most  chivalrous  of  autobiographers, 
Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury.  All  three  are  marked  by  a 
big,  simple,  youthful  spontaneity.  Take,  equally  at  ran 
dom,  three  other  names  which  belong  to  the  years  after 
Cromwell's  dominant  Puritanism  had  failed:  Samuel 
Pepys,  the  diarist;  Halifax,  the  great  Trimmer;  and  John 
Churchill,  first  Duke  of  Marlborough.  Though  by  no 
means  contemporary  with  ourselves,  these  seem,  in  com 
parison  with  the  elder  group,  almost  modern, — old-fash- 


English  History— 1600  to  1700          17 

ioned  men  rather  than  men  of  an  earlier  type  than  those 
we  live  with.  The  contrast  is  typical.  The  England 
which  came  before  Cromwell,  the  England  which  we  may 
name  "Elizabethan,"  vanished  when  Puritan  dominance 
broke  for  a  while  the  progress  of  English  constitutional 
law;  the  England  which  came  afterwards,  whatever  its 
merits  or  its  faults,  lacked,  as  England  has  continued  to 
lack  ever  since  the  Restoration,  certain  traits  which  we 
all  feel  in  the  old  Elizabethan  world. 

For  our  purpose  there  is  hardly  anything  more  important 
than  to  realize,  if  we  can,  what  these  Elizabethan  traits  Three 
were,  which  distinguish  the  England  before  Cromwell's  be^an 
time  from  that  which  has  come  after  him.     Perhaps  we  Traits, 
shall  have  done  a  little  to  remind  ourselves  of  what  Eliza 
bethan  England  possessed,  when  we  begin  to  feel  how 
throughout  that  older  time  we  find  three  characteristics 
which  in  later  days  are  more  and  more  rare, — spontaneity, 
enthusiasm,  and  versatility. 


II 

ENGLISH  LITERATURE  FROM  1600  TO  1700 

REFERENCES 

For  this  chapter,  as  for  the  others  on  English  literary  history,  the  gen 
eral  authorities  (see  p.  vii)  are  sufficient.  Whoever  wishes  more  about 
this  period  may  consult  George  Saintsbury's  History  of  Elizabethan  Liter 
ature,  London:  Macmillan,  1887,  and  A.  W.  Ward's  History  of  English 
Dramatic  Literature  to  the  Death  of  Queen  Anne,  3  vols.,  London:  Mac 
millan,  1899. 

The  Three  THE  social  history  of  seventeenth-century  England 
groups  itself  in  three  parts :  that  which  preceded  the  domi 
nant  Puritanism  of  the  Commonwealth;  the  dominant  Puri 
tanism  itself;  and  what  came  after.  All  three  of  these 
phases  of  English  life  found  expression  in  literature.  Be 
tween  1600  and  1605  appeared  plays  by  Dekker,  Ben  Jon- 
son,  John  Lyly,  Shakspere,  Marston,  Middleton,  Hey- 
wood,  and  Chapman;  Florio's  translation  of  Montaigne; 
Campion's  Art  of  English  Poetry;  and,  among  many  other 
lesser  works,  the  last  volume  of  Hakluyt's  Voyages.  Be 
tween  1648  and  1652  appeared  works  by  Fuller,  Herrick, 
Lovelace,  Milton,  Jeremy  Taylor,  Baxter,  Bunyan,  Izaak 
Walton,  and  George  Herbert.  Finally,  between  1695 
and  1700  appeared  plays  by  Congreve,  Farquhar,  and 
Vanbrugh;  and  works  of  one  sort  or  another  by  Bentley, 
Defoe,  Evelyn,  Lord  Shaftesbury,  and  Dryden;  not  to 
speak  of  Tate  and  Brady's  version  of  the  Psalms.  These 
random  lists  will  suggest  the  outline  of  the  literary  history 
we  need  to  keep  in  mind. 

18 


English  Literature— 1600  to  1700        19 

The  beginning  of  the  century  marked  the  height  of 
Elizabethan  literature,  in  which  the  central  figure  is  Shak- 
spere.  Among  the  men  who  were  writing  in  the  middle 
of  the  century,  men  in  whom  the  Elizabethan  spirit  was 
no  longer  strong,  one  rose  almost  as  superior  to  the  rest 
as  Shakspere  had  been  fifty  years  before.  That  one, 
of  course,  is  Milton  (1608-1674).  In  the  last  five  years 
of  the  century,  there  was  another  group,  as  different  from 
either  of  the  others  as  were  the  periwigs  of  Marlborough 
from  the  jewelled  caps  of  Sir  Walter  Ralegh;  and  in  this 
last  group,  as  in  the  others,  one  figure  emerges  from  the 
rest.  Here  that  figure  is  John  Dryden  (1631-1700),  the 
first  great  maker  of  heroic  couplets,  and  the  first  masterly 
writer  of  such  English  prose  as  we  now  feel  to  be  modern. 
It  is  worth  our  while  to  glance  in  turn  at  each  of  these 
literary  periods, — the  periods  of  Shakspere,  of  Milton, 
and  of  Dryden. 

Elizabethan  literature,  in  which  Shakspere   now    ap-  The  Pe- 
pears  supreme,  is  at  once  the  first,  and  in  many  respects  r^^°f 
the  greatest,  of  the  schools  or  periods  of  letters  which  con-  spere. 
stitute  modern   English  literature.     Marked  throughout 
by  spontaneity,  enthusiasm,  and  versatility,  this  period  is 
clearly  marked  as  well  by  the  fact  that  it  brought  to  final 
excellence  two  kinds  of  poetry, — the  lyric,  and  a  little  later 
the  dramatic.     In  thinking  of  Elizabethan  literature,  one 
is  accordingly  apt  to  forget  that  it  includes  noble  prose  as 
well.     Yet  no  reader  of  English  can  long  forget  that  to  this 
same  period  belong  the   scientific   work   and   the  later 
essays  of  Bacon.     It  was  within  the  first  fifteen  years  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  too,  that  Ralegh,  in  the  Tower, 
was  writing  his  History  0}  the  World;  and  that  various  mas 
terly  translations  were  accompanying  the  growth  of  that 


20  The  Seventeenth  Century 

final  masterpiece  of  translation,  the  English  Bible  of  1611. 
Meanwhile  there  were  minor  phases  of  literature:  the 
name  of  Hakluyt,  the  collector  of  so  many  records  of  ex 
ploration,  is  still  familiar;  so  is  that  of  Richard  Hooker, 
whose  Ecclesiastical  Polity  remains  the  chief  monument 
of  religious  controversy  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth.  Poetry 
was  first,  then,  and  supreme,  but  there  was  sonorous  and 
thoughtful  prose  in  philosophy  and  history  alike;  much 
matter  of  contemporary  chronicle,  such  as  Hakluyt's 
Voyages;  and  much  controversial  writing. 

Throughout  this  literature  there  is  one  trait  which  the 
lapse  of  three  centuries  has  tended  to  obscure.  This  is  a 
sort  of  pristine  alertness  of  mind,  evident  in  innumerable 
details  of  Elizabethan  style.  One  may  best  detect  it, 
perhaps,  by  committing  to  memory  random  passages  from 
Elizabethan  plays.  If  the  trait  occurred  only  in  the 
work  of  Shakspere,  one  might  deem  it  a  mere  fresh  miracle 
of  his  genius;  but  it  occurs  everywhere.  Such  literature 
as  the  Elizabethan  world  has  left  us  bears  witness  through 
out  that  the  public  for  which  it  was  made  was  quick  of  wit, 
and  eager  to  enjoy  a  wide  variety  of  literary  effects. 
ThePe-  By  the  middle  of  the  century,  this  trait  had  begun  to 
Milton  ^a<^e  out  °^  English  letters.  Our  brief  list  of  mid-century 
publications  revealed  Milton,  not  as  the  chief  of  a  school, 
but  rather  as  the  one  great  figure  in  a  group  of  fastidi 
ously  careful  minor  poets  and  elaborate  makers  of  over 
wrought  rhetorical  prose,  often  splendid  but  never  simple. 
Fuller,  Taylor,  and  Walton  fairly  typify  seventeenth- cen 
tury  prose;  to  complete  our  impression  of  it  we  might 
glance  at  Burton's  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  (1621),  and 
at  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  Religio  Medici  (1642).  One 
term  by  which  we  may  characterize  this  mid-century  Eng- 


English  Literature— 1600  to  1700         21 

lish  literature,  to  distinguish  it  from  what  came  before,  is 
the  term  "deliberate."  Mysteriously  but  certainly  the 
spontaneity  and  versatility  of  Elizabethan  days  had  dis 
appeared.  The  literature  of  Cromwell's  England  was  as 
different  from  that  of  Elizabeth's  as  Cromwell  was  from 
Walter  Ralegh.  The  names  of  Shakspere  and  Milton 
tell  the  story. 

The  name  of  Dryden  is  as  different  from  that  of  Milton  The  Pe 
as  Milton's  is  from  Shakspere's.  Though  Dryden's  Dryden 
Astr&a  Redux  was  published  in  1660,  seven  years  before 
Paradise  Lost,  Dryden  died  in  1700  amid  a  literature  whose 
poetry  had  cooled  into  something  like  the  rational  form 
which  deadened  it  throughout  the  century  to  come,  and 
whose  drama  had  for  forty  years  been  revealing  new 
phases  of  decadence.  But  if  poetry  and  the  drama 
were  for  the  moment  sleeping,  there  were  other  kinds  of 
English  thought,  if  not  of  English  feeling,  which  were  full 
of  life.  Boyle  (1627-1691)  had  done  his  work  in  chem 
istry;  Newton  (1642-1727)  had  created  a  whole  realm  of 
physical  science;  Locke  (1632-1704)  had  produced  his 
epoch-making  Essay  concerning  Humane  Understanding 
(1690);  and,  to  go  no  further,  the  works  of  Sir  William 
Temple  (1628-1699)  and  the  critical  essays  of  Dryden 
himself  had  given  English  prose  almost  its  final  form. 

In  literature,  just  as  in  history,  we  find,  the  seventeenth 
century  reveals  three  distinct  English  epochs,  each  dif 
ferent  from  the  others  and  all  together  involving  such 
changes  in  the  national   temperament   as  to   make  the  The 
England  of  Dryden  almost  as  foreign  to  that  of  Shak-  Na^onli 
spere  as  the  temper  of  King  William  III  was  to  Queen  Temper. 
Elizabeth's.      Like    Elizabethan    England,   Elizabethan 
literature  seems  different  from  anything  which  we  can 


22  The  Seventeenth  Century 

now  know  in  the  flesh.  One  can  hardly  imagine  feeling 
quite  at  home  in  the  Mermaid  Tavern  with  Beaumont 
and  Ben  Jonson  and  the  rest;  but  in  modern  London, 
or  at  least  in  the  London  of  thirty  years  ago,  one  might 
sometimes  feel  that  a  few  steps  around  a  grimy  corner 
should  still  lead  to  some  coffee-house,  where  glorious  John 
Dryden  could  be  found  sitting  in  robust,  old-fashioned 
dictatorship  over  the  laws  of  the  language  in  which  we 
ourselves  think  and  speak  and  feel.  For  Dryden's  Eng 
land  is  not  yet  quite  dead  and  gone.  But  dead  and  gone, 
or  at  least  vanished  from  this  earth,  in  Dryden's  time 
almost  as  surely  as  in  ours,  was  the  spontaneous,  enthu 
siastic,  and  versatile  old  England  of  Elizabeth. 

History  and  literature  alike,  in  short,  show  us  an  Eng 
land  of  the  seventeenth  century  wherein  the  great  central 
convulsion  of  dominant  Puritanism  fatally  destroyed  a 
youthful  world,  and  gave  us  in  its  place  a  more  deliberate, 
permanently  different  new  one. 


Ill 

AMERICAN    HISTORY   FROM    1600  TO    1700 

REFERENCES 

GENERAL  AUTHORITIES:  Excellent  short  accounts  are  Channing,  Stu 
dent's  History,  57-128;  Thwaites,  Colonies,  Chapters  iii-x,  especially 
iii  (outlining  in  general  the  English  policy  of  colonization  and  discussing 
the  religious  position  of  the  English  emigrants),  vi  (on  New  England, 
1620-1643),  and  viii  (on  social  and  economic  conditions  in  New  Eng 
land  in  1700). 

SPECIAL  WORKS:  The  authorities  mentioned  in  the  brief  bibliogra 
phies  at  the  beginnings  of  chapters  in  the  books  mentioned  above,  and, 
for  minute  study,  the  works  referred  to  in  the  larger  bibliographies 
named  below. 

BIBLIOGRAPHIES:  Channing  and  Hart,  Guide,  §§  92-130;  Winsor's 
America,  III-V. 

IT  was  in  the  first  quarter  of  this  seventeenth  century 
that  the  American  colonies  were  finally  established.  The 
first  lasting  settlement  in  Virginia  was  made  in  the  spring 
of  1607;  the  Pilgrims  landed  at  Plymouth  towards  the  coioniza- 
end  of  1620;  Boston  was  founded  less  than  ten  years  later;  t 
and  from  1636  dates  the  oldest  of  native  American  cor 
porations,  that  of  Harvard  College.  At  the  latest  of  these 
dates,  which  are  less  than  a  full  generation  apart,  the  tragic 
reign  of  Charles  I  was  not  half  finished;  at  the  earliest, 
Queen  Elizabeth  had  lain  less  than  five  years  in  West 
minster  Abbey. 

From  these  facts  may  be  inferred  another,  which  has 
been  comparatively  neglected:  every  leading  man  among 
the  first  settlers  both  of  Plymouth  and  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  was  born  under  Queen  Elizabeth  herself.  William 
Bradford  of  Plymouth,  for  example,  was  born  in  1590, 

23 


24  The  Seventeenth  Century 

The  First  the  year  when  Spenser  published  the  first  books  of  the 
colonists  Faerie  Queene;  -and  Edward  Winslow  was  born  in  1595, 
of  Eliza-  when  Shakspere  had  published  only  Venus  and  Adonis 

bethan 

Birth.  and  Lucrece.  Thomas  Dudley  is  said  to  have  been  born 
in  1 5  76,  some  ten  years  before  the  execution  of  Mary  Stuart. 
John  Winthrop  was  born  in  1588,  the  year  of  the  Invinci 
ble  Armada.  John  Cotton  was  born  in  1585,  the  year 
before  Sir  Philip  Sidney  was  killed,  when,  for  aught  we 
know,  Shakspere  had  not  yet  emerged  from  Stratford,  and 
when  surely  John  Foxe  (1516-1587),  the  martyrologist, 
was  still  alive.  Thomas  Hooker  was  born  only  a  year 
later,  in  1586.  Richard  Mather  was  only  ten  years 
younger,  born  in  the  year  when  Ben  Jonson's  first  play 
is  said  to  have  been  acted,  when  Ralegh  published  his 
Discovery  of  Guiana,  and  Spenser  the  last  three  books  of 
his  Faerie  Queene.  Roger  Williams  was  born  in  1600, 
the  year  which  gave  us  the  first  quartos  of  Henry  IV, 
Henry  V,  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  The  Merchant 
of  Venice,  and  Much  Ado  About  Nothing.  And  what  is 
thus  true  of  New  England  is  truer  still  of  Virginia,  founded 
half  a  generation  earlier.  Though  the  sovereigns  to  whom 
both  northern  and  southern  colonies  owed  their  first  alle 
giance  were  Stuarts,  all  the  founders  of  these  colonies  were 
of  true  Elizabethan  birth. 

They  were  not,  to  be  sure,  quite  the  kind  of  Elizabethans 
who  expressed  themselves  in  poetry.  The  single  work  pro 
duced  in  America  which  by  any  stretch  of  language  may  be 
held  a  contribution  to  Elizabethan  letters  is  a  portion  of 
George  Sandys'  translation  of  Ovid  made  during  his  so 
journ  in  Virginia  between  1621  and  1624.  In  general, 
the  settlers  of  Virginia  were  of  the  adventurous  type  which 
expresses  itself  far  more  in  action  than  in  words;  while 


American  History  —  1600  to  1700         25 

the  settlers  of  New  England  were  too  much  devoted  to  the 
affairs  of  another  world  than  this  to  have  time,  even  if  they 
had  had  taste,  for  devotion  to  any  form  of  fine  art.  Yet 
for  all  their  mutual  detestation,  Puritans  and  poets  alike 
had  the  spontaneity  of  temper,  the  enthusiasm  of  purpose, 
and  the  versatility  of  power  which  marked  Elizabethan 
England. 

Broadly  speaking,  all  our  northern  colonies  developed 
from  those  planted  in  Massachusetts,  and  all  our  southern 
from  that  planted  in  Virginia.  The  type  of  character 
which  planted  itself  on  the  shores  of  Massachusetts  Bay 
displayed  from  the  beginning  a  marked  power  of  assimi 
lating  whatever  came  within  its  influence.  An  equal 
power  of  assimilation  marked  the  less  austere  type 
which  first  planted  itself  on  the  James  River.  North 
and  South  alike,  then,  may  broadly  be  regarded  as  regions 
finally  settled  by  native  Elizabethan  Englishmen,  whose 
traits  proved  strong  enough  to  impress  themselves  on  pos 
terity  and  to  resist  the  immigrant  influences  of  other  tra 
ditions  than  their  own. 

Plymouth  and  Massachusetts  Bay  were  both  settled  by  Dominant 
devout   Calvinists.     Both  colonies  were  governed  from 


the  beginning  by  written  charters,  things  which,  except  in  New 
for  Cromwell's  Instrument  of  Government,  remain  foreign 
to  the  political  experience  of  native  Englishmen,  but  which 
are  pretty  clearly  the  prototypes  of  those  written  consti 
tutions  under  which  the  United  States  have  grown  and 
prospered.  In  both  colonies,  too,  the  ideals  of  dominant 
Puritanism  prevailed  from  the  beginning,  more  than  half 
a  generation  before  Cromwell  dominated  English  history. 
In  England,  dominant  Puritanism  was  transitory,  — 
fatally  unable  to  maintain  itself  among  the  complex 


26 


The  Seventeenth  Century 


traditions  which  compose  the  historical  continuity  of  the 
old  world.     In  New  England,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
was  no  historical  continuity,  no  tradition,  no  political  and 
social  complexity,  to  check  its  growth.     In  England  the 
Civil  Wars  came;  then  the  Commonwealth;  then  the  Pro 
tectorate;    then   the   Restora 
tion.     In  the  history  of  New 
England  we    find    no   epoch- 
making   facts    to    correspond 
with    these,    no    irruption    of 
political  ideals   strange  to  the 
founders    of     our     American 
Commonwealth,   nor    any  es 
sential    change    of    dominant 
ideals,   until   the   seventeenth 
century  was  over.    What  might 
have  happened  except  for  the 
Revolution  of  1688,  no  one  can 
say;  but  that  revolution  sub 
stantially  confirmed  the  traditions  of  the  New  England 
fathers. 

Throughout  the  seventeenth  century,  meanwhile,  a  fact 
had  been  developing  itself  on  the  American  continent 
which  was  perhaps  more  significant  to  the  future  of  New 
England  than  any  in  the  history  of  the  mother  country. 
The  French  Before  i6io  the  French  had  finally  established  themselves 
in  the  regions  now  known  as  Nova  Scotia,  and  from  that 
time  French  power  was  steadily  extending  itself  to  the 
northward  and  westward  of  the  English  colonies.  This 
French  domination  of  Canada  and  of  the  West  meant  the 
planting  and  the  growth  there  of  moral  and  political  ideals 
utterly  foreign  to  those  English  ideals  which  have  finally 


in  Canada. 


American  History — 1600  to  1700        27 

come  to  characterize  our  people.  The  ideal  for  which  the 
French  power  stood  in  religion  and  in  politics  alike  was, 
in  a  word,  the  ideal  of  authority, — of  a  centralized  earthly 
power  which,  so  far  as  it  reached,  should  absolutely  con 
trol  human  thought  and  conduct. 

Divine  authority,  of  course,  New  England  always  recog 
nized;  but  this  it  found  expressed  not  in  an  established 
hierarchy,  but  in  the  written  words  of  an  inspired  Bible. 
Temporal  authority,  too,  New  England  recognized;  but 
temporal  authority  secured  by  written  charters,  and  so 
limited  that  it  could  never  violate  the  traditional  liberties 
of  Englishmen.  So  the  conflict  between  France  and 
England  in  the  New  World  was  really  a  conflict  between 
two  incompatible  systems  of  political  principles, — Con 
tinental  absolutism  and  the  Common  Law  of  England. 
Not  until  well  into  the  eighteenth  century,  however,  did 
France  and  England  come  to  their  death-grapple  in 
America.  In  the  seventeenth  century,  or  at  least  until 
the  last  ten  years  of  it,  there  was  little  more  warfare  in 
New  England  than  the  struggles  of  the  Indians  against 
the  invading  race  which  has  long  ago  swept  them  away. 

The  history  of  seventeenth-century  New  England,  in  The  Seven- 
brief,  is  that  of  a  dominant  Puritanism,  twenty  years  older  ceee^tury  in 
than  Cromwell's  and  surviving  his  by  forty  years  more.   New  Ens- 
Amid  the  expanding  life  of  a  still  unexplored  continent, 
Puritanism  was  disturbed  by  no  such  environment  as  im 
peded  and  fatally  checked  it  in  England.     Rather,  the 
only  external  fact  which  affected  New  England  Puritanism 
at  all,  was  one  which  strengthened  it, — the  threatening 
growth  near  by  of  a  system  as  foreign  to  every  phase  of 
English  thought  as  it  was  to  Puritanism  itself. 

The  result  may  best  be  understood  by  comparing  some 


28 


The  Seventeenth  Century 


Se  wall's 
Diary. 


historical  records  of  New  England  during  the  hundred 
years  now  in  question.  The  earliest  history  of  Plymouth 
is  that  of  Governor  Bradford,  sometimes  miscalled  the 
"Log of  the  Mayflower";  the  earliest  history  of  Massachu 
setts  is  that  of  Governor  Winthrop.  Winthrop,  born  in 
1588,  died  in  1649;  Bradford,  born  in  1590,  died  in  1657. 
Both  were  born  under  Queen  Elizabeth;  both  emigrated 

before  English  Puritanism 
was  dominant;  and  neither 
survived  to  see  the  Restora 
tion.  Clearly,  the  state  of  life 
and  feeling  which  they  record 
belongs  to  the  first  period  of 
the  seventeenth  century, — the 
period  when  mature  men  were 
still  of  Elizabethan  birth.  In 
1652,  three  years  after  Win 
throp  died  and  five  years 
before  the  death  of  Bradford, 
Samuel  Sewall  was  born  in 
England.  In  1661,  four  years  after  Bradford's  death,  he  was 
brought  to  Massachusetts,  where  he  lived  all  his  life,  be 
coming  Chief  Justice  of  the  Superior  Court.  From  1674  to 
1 729  he  kept  his  diary.  SewalPs  life,  passed  chiefly  in  Mas 
sachusetts,  was  contemporary  with  the  English  literature 
between  Walton's  Complete  Angler  and  Pope's  Dunciad. 
Both  Winthrop  and  Bradford,  on  the  other  hand,  were 
born  before  Shakspere  was  certainly  known  as  a  popular 
playwright.  Yet  comparison  of  Bradford's  temper  or 
Winthrop's  with  SewalPs  will  show  so  many  more  points 
of  resemblance  than  of  difference  that  it  is  hard  to  realize 
how  when  Sewall  began  his  diary— not  to  speak  of  when 


American  History— 1600  to  1700        29 

he  finished  it — the  generation  to  which  Winthrop  and 
Bradford  belonged  was  almost  extinct.  The  three  books 
impress  one  as  virtually  contemporary. 

How  different  this  social  pause  was  from  the  social  prog-  The  Seven- 
ress  of  seventeenth-century  England  may  be  felt  by  simi-   cVnt^ry  in 
larly  comparing  two  familiar  English  records  of  the  period.  England. 
Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  (1582-1648)  was  almost  exactly 
contemporary  with  Winthrop;  his  autobiography,  written 
in  his  last  years,  is  among  the  most  characteristic  social 
records  in  our  language.     Fifteen  years  before  Lord  Her 
bert's  death,  and  ten  before  he  began  his  autobiography, 
Samuel  Pepys  was  born,  whose  celebrated  diary  runs  from 
1660  to  1669.     Pepys  stopped  writing  five  years  before 
Sewall  began,  and  so  far  as  age  goes  he  might  personally 
have  known  Lord  Herbert.     Yet  the  whole  temper  of 
Herbert  is  so  remote  from  that  of  Pepys  as  to  make  their 
writing  seem  of  different  epochs. 

Almost  any  similar  comparison  will  tell  the  same  story.  Ameri- 
Compare,  for  example,  your  impressions  of  Ralegh  and  ""*  ° 
of  Marlborough;  compare  Bacon  with  Newton,  or  Eliza-  retained 
beth  with  William  III.     Then  name  to  yourself  some  of  an  Traits, 
the  worthies  who  are  remembered  from  seventeenth-cen 
tury  America.     Bradford  and  Winthrop  we  have  named 
already;  Winslow  and  Dudley,  too.     Add  to  them  Stan- 
dish,  Endicott,  Roger  Williams,  and  John  Eliot,  the  apostle 
to  the  Indians;  John  Cotton  and  Richard  Mather;  In 
crease  Mather,  son  of  the  one  and  son-in-law  of  the  other; 
Cotton  Mather,  who  combined  the  blood  of  the  two  im 
migrant  ministers;  Sir  William  Phips;  and  Sewall,  who 
with  Stoughton  and  the  rest  sat  in  judgment  on  Salem 
witchcraft.     You  can  hardly  help  admitting  that,  though 
the  type  of  character  in  America  could  not  remain  quite 


30  The  Seventeenth  Century 

stationary,  the  change  between  the  earlier  years  of  the 
seventeenth  century  and  its  close  was  surprisingly  less 
marked  than  was  the  change  in  England.  A  little  thought 
will  show  what  this  means.  Although  the  type  of  charac 
ter  which  planted  itself  in  New  England  during  the  first 
quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  very  Puritan  and 
therefore,  from  the  point  of  view  of  its  contemporary  Eng 
lish  literature,  very  eccentric,  it  was  truly  an  Elizabethan 
type.  One  conclusion  seems  clear:  the  native  Yankees  of 
1700  were  incalculably  nearer  their  Elizabethan  ancestors 
than  were  their  contemporaries  born  in  the  mother  country. 
National  In  this  fact  we  come  to  a  consideration  worth  pondering. 
encVoT"  Such  historical  convulsions  as  those  which  declared  them- 
America.  selves  in  the  England  of  the  seventeenth  century  result 
from  the  struggle  of  social  and  political  forces  in  densely 
populated  regions.  Such  slow  social  development  as 
marks  the  seventeenth  century  in  New  England  is  pos 
sible  only  under  conditions  where  the  pressure  of  external 
fact,  social,  political,  and  economic,  is  relaxed.  Such 
changes  as  the  course  of  history  brought  to  seventeenth- 
century  England  are  changes  which  must  result  to  indi 
viduals  just  as  much  as  to  nations  themselves  from  some 
thing  which,  for  want  of  a  more  exact  word,  we  may  call 
experience.  Such  lack  of  change  as  marks  the  America 
of  the  seventeenth  century  indicates  the  absence  of  this. 
Yet  even  in  the  America  of  the  seventeenth  century  a  true 
nation,  the  nation  of  which  we  are  a  part,  was  growing 
towards  maturity.  Though  the  phrase  seem  paradoxical, 
it  is  surely  true  that  our  national  life  in  its  beginnings  was 
something  hardly  paralleled  in  other  history, — a  century 
of  national  inexperience. 


IV 

LITERATURE  IN  AMERICA  FROM  1600  TO  1700 

REFERENCES 
CAPTAIN  JOHN  SMITH 

WORKS:  Smith's  Works,  ed.  Edward  Arber,  2  vols.,  Westminster: 
Constable,  1895  ("The  English  Scholar's  Library,"  No.  16). 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  W.  G.  Simms,  Life  of  Captain  John 
Smith,  New  York:  Cooledge,  1846;  *C.  D.  Warner,  A  Study  of  the  Life 
and  Writings  of  John  Smith,  New  York:  Holt,  1881. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Smith's  Works,  ed.  Arber,  I,  cxxx-cxxxii;  Win- 
sor's  America,  III,  161-162,  211-212;  Channing  and  Hart,  Guide,  §§  97 
and  109. 

SELECTIONS:  Hart,  Contemporaries,  I,  Nos.  62,  90;  Stedman  and 
Hutchinson,  I,  3-17. 

BRADFORD 

WORKS:  History,  ed.  Charles  Deane,  Boston,  1856  (4  Mass.  Hist. 
Soc.  Coll.,  III).  Also  (same  year  and  place)  as  a  separate  publication. 
Another  edition,  Boston:  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  1898. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  Tyler,  I,  116-126;  Winsor's  America,  III, 
Chapter  viii. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Winsor's  America,  III,  283-289;  Channing  and  Hart, 
Guide,  §§  III-H2. 

SELECTIONS:  Hart,  Contemporaries,  I,  Nos.  49,  97-100,  117;  Stedman 
and  Hutchinson,  I,  93-115. 

WINTHROP 

WORKS:  The  best  edition  of  Winthrop's  History  of  New  England  is 
that  by  James  Savage,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1853.  There 
is  an  earlier  edition  by  Savage,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1825-26. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  *R.  C.  Winthrop,  Life  and  Letters  of  John 
Winthrop,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1864;  J.  H.  Twitchell, 
John  Winthrop,  New  York;  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.,  1891 ;  *Tyler,  I,  128-136. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  :  Winsor's  America,  III,  357-358;  Channing  and  Hart, 
Guide,  §  117. 

SELECTIONS:  Hart,  Contemporaries,  I,  Nos.  107,  118;  Stedman  and 
Hutchinson,  I,  291-309. 


32  The  Seventeenth  Century 


WORKS  :  SewalFs  Diary,  3  vols.,  Boston,  1878-82  (5  Mass.  Hist.  Soc. 
Coll.,  V-VII). 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM  :  N.  H.  Chamberlain,  Samuel  Sewall  and 
the  World  he  lived  in,  Boston:  DeWolfe,  Fiske  &  Co.,  1897;  *Tyler,  II, 
99-103;  H.  C.  Lodge,  "A  Puritan  Pepys,"  Studies  in  History,  Boston: 
Houghton,  1892,  21-84. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Winsor's  America,  V,  167-168. 

SELECTIONS:  Hart,  Contemporaries,  I,  No.  149;  II,  Nos.  18,  103; 
Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  II,  188-200. 

BAY  PSALM  BOOK 

TEXT:  A  literal  reprint  of  the  first  edition  was  published  privately  at 
Cambridge  in  1862  under  the  direction  of  Dr.  N.  B.  Shurtleff.  More 
accessible  is  the  reprint  edited  by  Wilberforce  Eames,  New  York :  Dodd, 
Mead  &  Co.,  1903. 

CRITICISM  :  Tyler,  I,  274-277;  Winsor's  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  I, 
458-460. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  :  Winsor  (see^reference  above);  Wilberforce  Eames,  A 
List  o)  Editions  o}  the  "Bay  Psalm  Book, "  New  York:  Privately  printed, 
1885. 

SELECTIONS  :  Hart,  Contemporaries,  I,  No.  138;  Stedman  and  Hutch 
inson,  I,  211-216. 

WARD 

WORKS  :  The  Simple  Cobbler  o}  Aggawam  in  America,  ed.  David 
Pulsifer,  Boston:  James  Munroe  &  Co.,  1843. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  J.  W.  Dean,  Memoir  0}  the  Rev.  Nathan 
iel  Ward,  Albany  :  Munsell,  1868;  Tyler,  I,  227-241. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Winsor's  America,  III,  350  n. 

SELECTIONS  :  Hart,  Contemporaries,  I,  No.  112;  Stedman  and  Hutch 
inson,  I,  276-285. 

WIGGLESWORTH 

WORKS  :  The  Day  of  Doom,  ed.  J.  W.  Dean,  New  York,  1867. 
BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  J.  W.  Dean's  Memoir  of  Wigglesworth, 
Albany:  Munsell,  1871. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Ward's  Memoir,  140-151. 
SELECTIONS  :   Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  II,  3-19. 

ANNE  BRADSTREET 

WORKS  :  Works,  ed.  J.  H.  Ellis,  Charlestown:  Abram  E.  Cutter,  1867; 
also  ed.  C.  E.  Norton,  privately  printed,  1897. 


Literature  in  America — 1600  to  1700       33 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  Helen  Campbell,  Anne Bradstreet  and  Her 
Time,  Boston:  Lothrop,  1891;  Tyler,  I,  277-292. 
SELECTIONS  :   Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  I,  311-315. 

AN  instructive  impression  of  the  character  of  literature  in 
America  during  the  seventeenth  century  may  be  derived 
from  Mr.  Whitcomb's  Chronological  Outlines  (pages  2-48). 
Speaking  roughly,  we  may  say  that  out  of  about  two  hun 
dred  and  fifteen  titles  which  he  records,  one  hundred  and 
ten  are  religious  works,  of  which  all  but  one  were  pro-  General 
duced  in  New  England.  Next  conies  history,  beginning  Cha 
with  Captain  John  Smith's  True  Relation,  1608,  which 
has  no  more  right  to  be  included  in  American  literature 
than  would  a  book  written  in  our  own  time  by  any  foreign 
writer.  Of  these  historical  titles  there  are  fifty-seven,  of 
which  thirty-seven  belong  to  New  England;  the  others, 
including  the  separate  works  of  Captain  John  Smith, 
come  either  from  Virginia  or  from  the  middle  colonies. 
Twenty  of  Mr.  Whitcomb's  titles  may  be  called  political; 
of  these  only  three  are  not  from  New  England.  Of  nine 
teen  other  titles,  including  almanacs  and  scientific  works 
which  may  best  be  called  miscellaneous,  all  but  two  belong 
in  New  England.  Finally,  there  are  nine  titles  to  which 
the  name  literature  may  properly  be  applied,  if  under  this 
head  we  include  not  only  the  poems  of  Mrs.  Bradstreet, 
but  the  "Bay  Psalm  Book,"  the  Day  of  Doom,  and  the 
first  New  England  Primer.  Of  these  nine  books  the  only 
one  not  from  New  England  was  the  portion  of  Ovid's 
M etamorphoses  which  GEORGE  SANDYS  (1577-1644)  trans 
lated  in  Virginia. 

This  rough  classification  shows:  (i)  that  New  England 
produced  so  large  a  proportion  of  American  books  during 
the  seventeenth  century  that  we  hardly  need  consider  the 


34 

rest  of  the  colonies;  and  (2)  that  of  the  books  written  in 
New  England,  the  greater  number  were  concerned  with 
religious  and  historical  matters.  It  will  be  worth  while 
to  consider  the  general  traits  of  these  two  classes  of  books 
before  we  pass  on  to  three  of  the  nine  works  which  may  be 
called  literature. 

Religious  The  religious  writing,  best  represented  by  the  works  of 
lngs'  Cotton  Mather,  who  is  the  subject  of  our  next  chapter, 
includes  also  such  works  as  those  of  THOMAS  HOOKER 
(about  1586-1647),  of  Cambridge  and  later  of  Hartford,  of 
THOMAS  SHEPARD  (1605-1649),  who  was  Hooker's  suc 
cessor  at  Cambridge,  and  of  JOHN  COTTON  (1585-1652) 
of  Boston.  Men  like  these,  deeply  learned  in  the  Bible 
and  books  about  the  Bible,  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  clas 
sics  as  well,  but  very  slightly  influenced  by  contemporary 
Elizabethan  writings,  had  enormous  influence.  Their 
words,  preached  or  written,  weighed  only  a  little  less  than 
the  Word  of  God  itself.  Their  writings,  mainly  sermons 
and  controversial  pamphlets,  are  grim,  unsparing  ap 
plications  of  Calvinistic  teaching  to  public  affairs  and  to 
the  smallest  concerns  of  private  life.  These  works  have 
little  beauty  of  style;  in  plan  they  often  seem  hardly  more 
than  masses  of  Bible  texts  put  together  with  a  thin 
thread  of  comment.  But,  although  disdainful  of  grace, 
these  religious  writings  of  seventeenth- century  New  Eng 
land  are  heroically  earnest,  and  occasionally  they  melt 
into  a  sombre  tenderness  of  phrase  which  is  far  from 
unlovely. 

The  historical  writing  includes  not  only  the  two  famous 
histories  of  the  period,  the  annals  Of  Plymouth  Plantation 
by  Governor  WILLIAM  BRADFORD  (1590-1657)  of  the 
Plymouth  Colony  and  the  History  of  New  England  by 


Literature  in  America — 1600  to  1700       35 

Governor  JOHN  WINTHROP  (1588-1649),  but  such  minor 
works  as  New  England's  Memorial,  1669,  by  NATHANIEL 
MORTON  (1613-1685);  WILLIAM  WOOD'S  New  England's 
Prospect,  1634 ;  the  so-called  Mourt's  Relation,  1622, 
probably  by  Governor  BRADFORD  and  EDWARD  WINSLOW  Historical 
(1595-1655);  and  Captain  EDWARD  JOHNSON'S  Wonder 
working  Providence  of  Sion's  Saviour  in  New  England, 
1645.  This  last  title  is  significant:  history  in  America 
during  this  seventeenth  century,  whether  a  private  diary, 
or  the  history  of  a  war,  or  whatever  else,  was  the  devout 
record  of  the  hand  of  God  guiding  the  affairs  of  human 
beings.  Again,  this  history  was  not  of  the  sort  which 
calmly  views  events  in  the  perspective  of  time,  but  it  was 
written  by  men  who  when  they  took  up  the  pen  to  write  of 
one  battle  kept  within  their  reach  the  sword  which  they 
might  presently  need  for  the  next.  Much  of  their  work  is 
accordingly  in  the  form  of  diaries  and  annals.  If  we  re 
member  that  it  was  very  devout  and  very  personal,  frag 
mentary  in  form,  usually  uncouth  in  style,  but  almost 
always  sternly  direct  and  sometimes  unwittingly  memo 
rable  in  phrasing,  we  shall  recognize  its  most  important 
traits. 

Contrasting  these  impressions  with  our  summary  of 
English  literature  during  this  seventeenth  century, — the 
century  of  Shakspere,  of  Milton,  and  of  Dryden, — it 
seems  at  first  as  if  America  produced  no  literature  at  all. 
Looking  more  carefully,  however,  we  see  that  in  Eliza 
bethan  England  along  with  supreme  poetry  there  was  also 
both  lasting  prose,  like  that  of  Hooker,  of  Bacon,  and  of 
Ralegh,  and  such  minor  prose  records  and  annals  as  are 
typified  by  Hakluyt's  Voyages,  together  with  a  good 
deal  of  now  forgotten  religious  writing.  In  English  litera- 


36  The  Seventeenth  Century 

ture,  these  last  sorts  of  writing  are  unimportant;  they 
were  generally  produced  not  by  men  of  letters,  but  either 
by  men  of  action  or  by  earnest,  uninspired  men  of  God. 
Now  the  men  who  founded  the  colonies  of  Virginia  and 
of  New  England  were  on  the  one  hand  men  of  action,  and 
on  the  other,  men  of  God.  It  is  precisely  such  matter  as 
Elizabethan  Englishmen  left  in  books  now  remembered 
only  as  material  for  history  that  the  fathers  of  America 
produced  throughout  the  first  century  of  our  national 
inexperience. 

"Bay  If  we  seek  in  New  England  for  traces  of  pure  literature 

Book""  during  the  seventeenth  century,  indeed,  we  shall  discover 
hardly  anything  before  the  "Bay  Psalm  Book,"  produced 
under  the  supervision  of  Richard  Mather,  Thomas  Welde, 
and  John  Eliot,  in  1640.  An  extract  from  the  preface 
and  from  the  Nineteenth  Psalm  will  give  a  sufficient  taste 
of  its  quality: — 

"If  therefore  the  verses  are  not  alwayes  so  smooth  and  elegant  as 
some  may  desire  or  expect;  let  them  consider  that  God's  Altar  needs 
not  our  pollishings  :  Ex.  20.  for  wee  have  respected  rather  a  plaine 
translation,  then  to  smooth  our  verses  with  the  sweetness  of  any 
paraphrase,  and  soe  have  attended  Conscience  rather  then  Elegance, 
fidelity  rather  than  poetry,  in  translating  the  hebrew  words  into  eng- 
Hsh  language,  and  Davids  poetry  into  english  meetre;  that  soe  we 
may  sing  in  Sion  the  Lords  songs  of  prayse  according  to  his  owne 
will;  untill  hee  take  us  from  hence,  and  wipe  away  all  our  teares,  & 
bid  us  enter  into  our  masters  ioye  to  sing  eternall  Halleluiahs." 


"PSALME  XIX 

To  the  chieje  Musician  a  psalme  oj  David 

The  heavens  doe  declare 
the  majesty  of  God; 


Literature  in  America — 1600  to  1700       37 

also  the  firmament  shews  forth 
his  handy-work  abroad. 

2  Day  speaks  to  day,  knowledge 

night  hath  to  night  declar'd. 

3  There  neither  speach  nor  language  is, 

where  their  voyce  is  not  heard. 

4  Through  all  the  earth  their  line 

is  gone  forth,  &  unto 
the  utmost  end  of  all  the  world, 

their  speaches  reach  also : 
A  Tabernacle  hee 

in  them  pitcht  for  the  Sun. 

5  Who  Bridegroom  like  from's  chamber  goes 

glad  Giants-race  to  run. 

6  From  heavens  utmost  end, 

his  course  and  compassing ; 
to  ends  of  it,  &  from  the  heat 
thereof  is  hid  nothing. " 

The  King  James  version  of  the  same  psalm,  published  less 
than  thirty  years  before,  was  perfectly  familiar  to  the  men 
who  hammered  out  this  barbarous  imitation  of  a  metre 
similarly  used  by  the  Earl  of  Surrey  in  the  time  of  Henry 
VIII.  This  fact  should  give  a  sufficient  idea  of  the  lit 
erary  spirit  which  controlled  the  Puritan  fathers. 

The  next  monument  of  literature  in  America  is  note-  Ward's 
worthy  only  because  it  was  written  there,  and  not  in  Eng-   cobbler  of 
land.    In  1647,  the  Reverend  NATHANIEL  WARD  of  Aga-  Aggawam. 
warn  (now  Ipswich),  Massachusetts,  published  his  Simple 
Cobbler  o]  Aggawam,  who,  as  he  declared  on  the  title-page, 
was  "  willing  to  help  'mend  his  Native  Country,  lamentably 
tattered,  both  in  the  upper-Leather  and  Sole,  with  all  the 
honest  stitches  he  can  take."     The  book  is  a  violent  attack 
upon  the  relaxed  attitude  of  the  church  in  tolerating  shades 
of  belief,  upon  frivolity  in  dress  and  manners,  and  upon 


38  The  Seventeenth  Century 

the  "wearisome  wars,"  the  Civil  Wars  in  England,  which 
he  desires  may  be  brought  to  a  "comely,  brotherly,  sea 
sonable,  and  reasonable  cessation." 

wiggles-         Fifteen  years  later,  in  1662,  MICHAEL  WIGGLESWORTH 

Day  of S       C1 63 1-17 1 5),   then  minister  of  Maiden,   Massachusetts, 

Doom.        published  his  Day  a]  Doom,  or,  A  Poetical  Description  of 

the  Great  and  Last  Judgment,  which  retained  its  influence 

in  New  England  for  about  a  century.     Of  this  the  "Plea 

of  the  Infants"  is  example  enough: 

"If  for  our  own  transgression, 

or  disobedience, 
We  here  did  stand  at  thy  left  hand 

just  were  the  Recompence  : 
But  Adam's  guilt  our  souls  hath  spilt, 

his  fault  is  charg'd  on  us  : 
And  that  alone  hath  overthrown, 

and  utterly  undone  us. 

"Not  we,  but  he  ate  of  the  Tree, 

whose  fruit  was  interdicted; 
Yet  on  us  all  of  his  sad  Fall, 

the  punishment's  inflicted. 
How  could  we  sin  that  had  not  been 

or  how  is  his  sin  our 
Without  consent  which  to  prevent, 

we  never  had  a  pow'r?" 

And  so  on  for  several  stanzas,  after  which  the  Lord 
pronounces  this  judgment: 

"You  sinners  are,  and  such  a  share 

as  sinners  may  expect, 
Such  you  shall  have;  for  I  do  save 
none  but  my  own  Elect. 


Literature  in  America — 1600  to  1700       39 

Yet  to  compare  your  sin  with  their 

who  lived  a  longer  time, 
I  do  confess  yours  is  much  less, 

though  every  sin's  a  crime. 

"A  crime  it  is,  therefore  in  bliss 

you  may  not  hope  to  dwell ; 
But  unto  you  I  shall  allow 

the  easiest  room  in  Hell. 
The  glorious  King  thus  answering, 

they  cease  and  plead  no  longer  : 
Their  Consciences  must  needs  confess 

his  reasons  are  the  stronger. " 

Such  work  is  more  characteristic  of  seventeenth- century  Mrs. 
America  than  is  the  verse   of  Mrs.  ANNE   BRADSTREET  Bradstreet- 
(1612  or  1613-1672),  daughter  of  the  elder  Governor  Dud 
ley.     A  few  verses  from  a  volume  entitled  Several  Poems 
Compiled  with  great  -variety  of  Wit  and  Learning,  full  of 
Delight,  which  was  published  in  1678,  six  years  after  Mrs. 
Bradstreet's  death,  will  show  her  at  her  best : 

"When  I  behold  the  heavens  as  in  their  prime, 

And  then  the  earth  (though  old)  still  clad  in  green, 
The  stones  and  trees,  insensible  of  time, 

Nor  age  nor  wrinkle  on  their  front  are  seen  ; 
If  Winter  come,  and  greenness  then  do  fade, 
A  Spring  returns,  and  they  more  youthful  made  ; 
But  man  grows  old,  lies  down,  remains  where  once  he's  laid. 

"O  Time,  the  fatal  wrack  of  mortal  things, 

That  draws  oblivion's  curtains  over  kings, 
Their  sumptuous  monuments,  men  know  them  not, 

Their  names  without  a  record  are  forgot, 
Their  parts,  their  ports,  their  pomp's  all  laid  in  th'  dust, 
Nor  wit  nor  gold,  nor  buildings  'scape  time's  rust; 
But  he  whose  name  is  grav'd  in  the  white  stone 
Shall  last  and  shine  when  all  of  these  are  gone. " 


40 


The  Seventeenth  Century 


Mrs.  Bradstreet's  family,  as  the  career  of  her  brother, 
Governor  Joseph  Dudley,  indicates,  kept  in  closer  touch 
with  England  than  was  common  in  America;  and  besides 
she  was  clearly  a  person  of  what  would  nowadays  be  called 
culture.  Partly  for  these  reasons  her  work  seems  neither 
individual  nor  local.  In  seventeenth-century  New  Eng 
land,  indeed,  she  stands  alone,  without  forerunners  or  fol 
lowers;  and  if  you  compare  her  poetry  with  that  of  the 
old  country,  you  will  find  it  very  like  such  then  antiquated 
work  as  the  Nosce  Teipsum  of  Sir  John  Davies,  published 
in  1599,  the  year  which  gave  us  the  final  version  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet.  In  its  own  day,  without  much  doubt,  the 
little  pure  literature  of  seventeenth-century  New  England 
was  already  archaic. 

Apart  from  this,  New  England  produced  only  annals, 
Summary,  records,  and,  far  more  characteristically,  writings  of  the 
class  which  may  be  grouped  broadly  under  theology.  Just 
as  our  glance  at  the  history  of  seventeenth-century  America 
revealed  no  central  convulsions  like  the  Commonwealth, 
dividing  an  old  epoch  from  a  new,  so  our  glance  at  the 
American  publications  of  this  century  reveals  no  central 
figure  like  Milton's  standing  between  the  old  Elizabethan 
world  which  clustered  about  Shakspere,  and  the  new, 
almost  modern,  school  of  letters  which  gathered  about 
Dryden. 

A  fact  perhaps  more  characteristic  of  seventeenth-cen 
tury  America  than  any  publication  was  the  foundation 
in  1636  of  Harvard  College,  intended  to  preserve  for  pos 
terity  that  learned  ministry  which  was  the  distinguishing 
glory  of  the  immigrant  Puritans.  In  the  history  of  Har 
vard  College  during  the  seventeenth  century  the  most  con 
spicuous  individuals  were  probably  President  INCREASE 


The 
Mathers. 


Literature  in  America — 1600  to  1700       41 

MATHER  (1639-1723)  and  his  son  COTTON  MATHER 
(1663-1728).  The  younger  of  these  wrote  very  volumi 
nously.  During  forty-two  years  of  literary  activity,  how 
ever,  he  never  changed  either  his  style  or  his  temper.  His 
work  falls  chiefly  though  not  wholly  under  the  two  heads 
of  religion  and  history,  which  with  him  were  so  far  from 
distinct  that  it  is  often  hard  to  say  under  which  a  given 
work  or  passage  should  be  grouped.  These  heads  are  the 
same  which  we  have  seen  to  include  most  American 
writings  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Cotton  Mather's 
work,  in  short,  is  so  thoroughly  typical  of  American  pub 
lications  throughout  his  time  that  a  little  study  of  him  will 
best  define  for  us  what  seventeenth- century  writing  in 
America  really  was. 


V 

COTTON  MATHER 

REFERENCES 

WORKS :  No  collected  edition.  The  Magnolia  has  been  thrice  reprinted, 
2  vols.,  Hartford,  1820,  1853,  and  *i855- 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM  :  A.  B.  P.  Marvin,  The  Lije  and  Times  0} 
Cotton  Mather,  Boston:  Congregational  Publishing  Society,  1892;  *B. 
Wendell,  Cotton  Mather,  New  York:  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.,  1891;  *Tyler, 
II,  64-91. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  :  J.  L.  Sibley,  Harvard  Graduates,  III,  42-158. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  4-12;  Duyckinck,  I,  64-66;  Hart,  Contem 
poraries,  I,  No.  148,  and  II,  No.  12;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  II,  114- 
166. 

COTTON  MATHER  (1663-1728)  was  the  son  of  Increase 
Mather,  a  minister  already  eminent,  and  the  grandson  of 
John  Cotton  and  of  Richard  Mather,  two  highly  distin 
guished  ministers  of  the  immigration.  In  1678  he  took 
his  degree  at  Harvard  College.  Only  three  years  later,  in 
1 68 1,  he  became  associated  with  his  father  as  minister  of 
the  Second  Church  in  Boston,  where  he  preached  all  his 
life. 

Life.  To  understand  both  his  personal  history  and  his  literary 

work,  we  must  never  forget  that  the  Puritan  fathers  had 
believed  New  England  charged  with  a  divine  mission  to 
show  the  world  what  human  society  might  be  when  gov 
erned  by  constant  devotion  to  the  revealed  law  of  God. 
This  is  nowhere  better  stated  than  by  Cotton  Mather  him 
self  in  the  general  introduction  to  his  Magnolia : 

42 


Cotton  Mather  43 

"In  short,  the  First  Age  was  the  Golden  Age:  To  return  unto  That, 
will  make  a  Man  a  Protestant,  and  I  may  add,  a  Puritan.  'T  is 
possible,  that  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  carried  some  Thousands  of 
Reformers  into  the  Retirement  of  an  American  Desert,  on  purpose, 
that  with  an  opportunity  granted  unto  many  of  his  Faithful  Servants, 
to  enjoy  the  precious  Liberty  of  their  Ministry,  tho'  in  the  midst  of 
many  Temptations  all  their  days,  He  might  there  To  them  first,  and 
then  By  them,  give  a  Specimen  of  many  good  Things,  which  he  would 
have  His  Churches  elsewhere  aspire  and  arise  unto:  And  This  being 
done,  He  knows  whether  there  be  not  All  Done,  that  New  England 
was  planted  for ;  and  whether  the  Plantation  may  not,  soon  after 
this,  Come  to  Nothing." 

In  the  course  of  seventy  years,  the  political  power  of 
ministers  had  tended  on  the  whole  to  wane.  Increase  and 
Cotton  Mather,  able  and  earnest  men,  opposed  with  all 
their  hearts  every  innovating  tendency.  Thus,  with  many 
other  ministers,  they  were  forced  into  active  support  of 
the  witch-trials  at  Salem  in  1692.  The  collapse  of  these  The  End  of 
trials,  in  spite  of  ministerial  effort,  may  be  said  to  mark  the  j^^"*07 
end  of  theocracy  in  New  England.  Nine  years  later,  in  England. 
1701,  the  orthodox  party  in  the  church  had  another  blow. 
Increase  Mather,  after  sixteen  years  as  President  of  Har 
vard  College,  was  finally  displaced  by  a  divine  of  more 
liberal  tendencies.  This  really  ended  the  public  career 
of  both  father  and  son.  In  the  public  life  of  New  Eng 
land,  as  in  that  of  the  mother  country,  we  may  say,  the 
ideal  of  the  Common  Law  finally  supplanted  the  theo 
cratic  ideal  of  the  Puritans,  and  at  the  oldest  of  New 
England  seminaries  the  ideal  of  Protestantism  finally 
vanquished  that  of  priesthood. 

Cotton  Mather  lived  on  until  1728,  preaching,  writing 
numberless  books,  and  doing  much  good  scientific  work; 
among  other  things,  he  was  the  first  person  in  the  English- 


44  The  Seventeenth  Century 

speaking  world  to  practise  inoculation  for  small-pox.  Un 
tiringly  busy,  hoping  against  hope  for  well  on  to  thirty 
years,  he  died  at  last  with  the  word  Fructuosus  *  on  his 
lips  as  a  last  counsel  to  his  son.  Undoubtedly  he  was 
eccentric  and  fantastic,  so  stubborn,  too,  that  those  who 
love  progress  have  been  apt  to  think  him  almost  as  bad 
as  he  was  queer.  For  all  his  personal  eccentricity,  however, 
he  seems  on  the  whole  the  most  complete  type  of  the  oldest- 
fashioned  divine  of  New  England.  He  was  born  in  Boston 
and  educated  at  Harvard  College;  he  lived  in  Boston  all 
his  life,  never  straying  a  hundred  miles  away.  Whatever 
else  his  life  and  work  mean,  they  cannot  help  expressing 
what  human  existence  taught  the  most  intellectually  active 
of  seventeenth- century  Yankees. 

Here,  of  course,  we  are  concerned  with  him  only  as  a 
man  of  letters.  His  literary  activity  was  prodigious.  Sib- 
ley's  Harvard  Graduates  records  some  four  hundred  titles 
of  his  actual  publications;  besides  this,  he  wrote  an  un- 
Mather's  published  treatise  on  medicine  which  would  fill  a  folio  vol 
ume;  and  his  unpublished  Biblia  Americana — an  exhaus 
tive  commentary  on  the  whole  Bible — would  fill  two  or 
three  folios  more.  He  also  left  behind  him  many  sermons, 
not  to  speak  of  letters  and  diaries,  which  have  never  seen 
print.  And,  at  the  same  time,  he  was  one  of  the  busiest 
ministers,  one  of  the  most  insatiable  scholars  and  readers, 
and  one  of  the  most  active  politicians  whom  America  has 
ever  known. 

To  discuss  in  detail  such  an  outpour  is  impracticable; 
but  Cotton  Mather's  most  celebrated  book,  Magnolia 
Christi  Americana;  or,  The  Ecclesiastical  History  of  New 
England,  which  was  made  towards  the  middle  of  his  life 

*  Fruitful.    • 


45 


nalia. 


and  which  includes  reprints  of  a  number  of  brief  works 
published  earlier,  typifies  all  he  did  as  a  man  of  letters, 
before  or  afterwards.     It  was  begun,  his  diary  tells  us, 
in  1693;  and  although  not  published  until  1702,  it  was 
virtually  finished  in  1697.     These  dates  throw  light  on 
what  the  book  really  means;  they  come  just  between  the  The  Mag- 
end  of  those  witchcraft  trials  which  broke  the  political 
power  of  the  clergy,  and  the 
final  defeat  of  the  Mathers  in 
their  endeavor   to   retain  the 
government  of   Harvard  Col 
lege.    Though    tradition   still 
holds   this    endeavor  to  have 
been  chiefly  a  matter  of  per 
sonal  ambition,  whoever  comes 
intimately  to  know  the  Math 
ers   must   feel    that   to  them 
the  question  seemed  far  other 
wise.     What  both  had  at  heart 
was  a  passionate  desire   that 
New  England  should  remain 

true  to  the  cause  of  the  fathers,  which  both  believed 
indisputably  the  cause  of  God.  In  the  years  when  the 
Magnolia  was  writing,  there  seemed  a  chance  that  if  con 
temporary  New  England  could  awaken  to  a  sense  of  what 
pristine  New  England  had  been,  all  might  still  go  well. 
So  the  Magnalia,  though  professedly  a  history,  may  bet 
ter  be  regarded  as  a  passionate  controversial  tract.  Its 
true  motive  was  to  excite  so  enthusiastic  a  sympathy  with 
the  ideals  of  the  Puritan  fathers  that,  whatever  fate  might 
befall  the  civil  government,  their  ancestral  seminary  of 
learning  should  remain  true  to  its  colors. 


46  The  Seventeenth  Century 

At  the  time  when  the  Magnolia  was  conceived,  the  New 
England  colonies  were  about  seventy  years  old.  Broadly 
speaking,  there  had  flourished  in  them  three  generations, — 
the  immigrants,  their  children,  and  their  grandchildren. 
The  time  was  come,  Cotton  Mather  thought,  when  the 
history  of  these  three  generations  might  be  critically  ex 
amined  ;  if  this  examination  should  result  in  showing  that 
there  had  lived  in  New  England  an  unprecedented  pro 
portion  of  men  and  women  and  children  whose  earthly  ex 
istence  had  given  signs  that  they  were  pleasing  to  God, 
then  his  book  might  go  far  to  prove  that  the  pristine  policy 
of  New  England  had  been  especially  favored  of  the  Lord. 
For  surely  the  Lord  would  most  gladly  plant  His  chosen 
ones  in  places  where  life  was  conducted  most  nearly  in 
accordance  with  His  will. 

Cotton  Mather  consequently  writes  in  a  spirit  very  dif 
ferent  from  that  of  a  critical  modern  historian.  In  his 
general  narrative,  for  example,  he  hardly  mentions  the 
Antinomian  controversy,  and  has  little  to  say  of  such 
subsequently  famous  personages  as  Roger  Williams  or 
its  Mrs.  Anne  Hutchinson.  On  the  other  hand,  he  details 

ttts>  at  loving  length,  first  the  lives  of  those  governors  and 
magistrates  who  seemed  especial  servants  of  the  Lord, 
from  Bradford  and  Winthrop  and  Theophilus  Eaton  to 
Sir  William  Phips;  and  next  the  lives  and  spiritual  ex 
periences  of  a  great  number  of  the  immigrant  clergy  and  of 
their  successors  in  the  pulpit.  He  recounts  the  history  of 
Harvard  College  during  its.  first  sixty  years ;  and  he  lays 
down  with  surprising  lucidity  the  orthodox  doctrine  and 
discipline  of  the  New  England  churches.  These  matters 
fill  five  of  the  seven  books  into  which  the  Magnolia  is  di 
vided.  The  last  two  books  portray  the  reverse  of  the 


Cotton  Mather  47 

picture;  one  deals  with  "Remarkable  Mercies  and  Judg 
ments  on  many  particular  persons  among  the  people  of 
New  England,"  and  the  other  with  "The  Wars  of  the 
Lord — the  Afflictive  Disturbances  which  the  Churches 
of  New  England  have  suffered  from  their  various  adver 
saries  ;  and  the  Wonderful  Methods  and  Mercies,  whereby 
the  Churches  have  been  delivered."  Full  of  petty  personal 
anecdote,  and  frequently  revealing  not  only  bigoted  preju 
dice  but  grotesque  superstition,  these  last  two  books  have 
been  more  generally  remembered  than  the  rest;  but  they 
are  by  no  means  the  most  characteristic. 

The  prose  epic  of  New  England  Puritanism,  the  Mag 
nolia  has  been  called,  setting  forth  in  heroic  mood  the 
principles,  the  history,  and  the  personal  characters  of  the 
fathers.  The  principles,  theologic  and  disciplinary  alike, 
are  stated  with  clearness,  dignity,  and  fervor.  The  history,  its 
though  its  less  welcome  phases  are  often  lightly  emphasized  1  Bmper- 
and  its  details  are  hampered  by  no  deep  regard  for  minor 
accuracy,  is  set  forth  with  a  sincere  ardor  which  makes  its 
temper  more  instructive  than  that  of  many  more  trust 
worthy  records.  And  the  life-like  portraits  of  the  Lord's 
chosen,  though  full  of  quaintly  fantastic  phrasing  and 
artless  pedantry,  are  often  drawn  with  touches  of  enthu 
siastic  beauty. 

The  last  clause  of  a  ponderous  sentence  from  his  life 
of  Thomas  Shepard,  first  minister  of  Cambridge,  is  far 
more  characteristic  of  Mather  than  are  many  of  the  oddi 
ties  commonly  thought  of  when  his  name  is  mentioned : — 

"As  he  was  a  very  Studious  Person,  and  a  very  lively  Preacher; 
and  one  who  therefore  took  great  Pains  in  his  Preparations  for  his 
Publick  Labours,  which  Preparations  he  would  usually  finish  on 
Saturday,  by  two  a  Clock  in  the  Afternoon  ;  with  respect  whereunto 


48 


Elizabeth 
an  Traits 
in  the 

Magnalia. 


he  once  used  these  Words,  God  will  curse  that  Man's.  Labours,  that 
lumbers  up  and  down  in  the  World  all  the  Week,  and  then  upon 
Saturday,  in  the  afternoon  goes  to  his  Study ;  whereas  God  knows, 
that  Time  were  little  enough  to  pray  in  and  weep  in,  and  get  his  Heart 
into  a  fit  Frame  for  the  Duties  oj  the  approaching  Sabbath;  So  the 
Character  of  his  daily  Conversation,  was  A  Trembling  Walk  with 
God." 

"A  trembling  walk  with  God," — you  shall  look  far  for  a 
nobler  phrase  than  that,  or  for  one  which  should  more  truly 
characterize  not  only  Thomas  Shepard,  but  the  better  life 
of  all  the  first  century  of  New  England,  where  the  pressure 
of  external  fact  was  politically  and  socially  relaxed ;  where, 
except  with  the  brute  forces  of  nature,  the  struggle  for  ex 
istence  was  less  fierce  than  in  almost  any  other  region  now 
remembered. 

The  Magnalia  is  full  of  an  enthusiasm  which,  in  spite 
of  the  pedantic  queerness  of  Mather's  style,  one  grows  to 
feel  more  and  more  vital.  Amid  all  its  vagaries  and  oddi 
ties,  one  feels  too  a  trait  which  even  our  single  extract  may 
perhaps  indicate.  Again  and  again,  Cotton  Mather  writes 
with  a  rhythmical  beauty  which  recalls  the  enthusiastic 
spontaneity  of  Elizabethan  English.  And  though  the 
Magnalia  hardly  reveals  the  third  characteristic  of  Eliza 
bethan  England,  no  one  can  read  the  facts  of  Cotton 
Mather's  busy,  active  life  without  feeling  that  this  man 
himself,  who  wrote  with  enthusiastic  spontaneity,  and  who 
in  his  earthly  life  was  minister,  politician,  man  of  science, 
scholar,  and  constant  organizer  of  innumerable  good  works, 
embodied  just  that  kind  of  restless  versatility  which  char 
acterized  Elizabethan  England  and  which  to  this  day  re 
mains  characteristic  of  native  Yankees. 

For  if  the  lapse  of  seventy  years  had  not  left  New  Eng- 


Cotton  Mather  49 

land  unchanged,  it  had  altered  life  there  far  less  than  men 
have  supposed.  The  Magnolia  was  published  two  years 
after  Dryden  died;  yet  it  groups  itself  not  with  such  work 
as  Dryden's,  but  rather  with  such  earlier  work  as  that  of 
Fuller  or  even  of  Burton.  As  a  man  of  letters,  Cotton 
Mather,  who  died  in  the  reign  of  George  II,  had  more 
in  common  with  that  generation  of  his  ancestors  which 
was  born  under  the  last  of  the  Tudors  than  with  any  later 
kind  of  native  Englishmen. 


VI 

SUMMARY 

OUR  glance  at  the  literary  history  of  America  during 
the  seventeenth  century  has  revealed  these  facts:  in  1630, 
when  Boston  was  founded,  the  mature  inhabitants  of 
America,  like  their  brethren  in  England,  were  native 
Elizabethans;  in  1700  this  race  had  long  been  in  its  grave. 
In  densely  populated  England,  meanwhile,  historical  pres 
sure — social,  political,  and  economic  alike — had  wrought 
such  changes  in  the  national  character  as  are  marked 
by  the  contrast  between  the  figures  of  Elizabeth  and  of 
King  William  III.  National  experience  had  altered  the 
dominant  type  of  native  Englishmen.  In  America  the 
absence  of  any  such  external  pressure  had  preserved  to  an 
incalculable  degree  the  spontaneous,  enthusiastic,  versatile 
character  of  the  original  immigrants.  In  literature,  sev 
enteenth-century  England  had  expressed  itself  in  at  least 
three  great  and  distinct  moods,  of  which  the  dominant 
figures  were  Shakspere,  Milton,  and  Dryden.  Though 
America  had  meanwhile  produced  hardly  any  pure  letters, 
it  had  continued,  long  after  Elizabethan  temper  had  faded 
from  the  native  literature  of  England,  to  keep  alive  with 
little  alteration  those  minor  phases  of  Elizabethan  thought 
and  feeling  which  had  expressed  the  temper  of  the  ances 
tral  Puritans.  In  history  and  in  literature  alike,  the  story 
of  seventeenth-century  America  is  a  story  of  unique  na 
tional  inexperience. 

50 


BOOK  II 
THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY 


BOOK    II 
THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

I 

ENGLISH  HISTORY  FROM  1700  TO  1800 

REFERENCES 
Gardiner,  Chapters  xliv-lii. 

WHEN  the  eighteenth  century  began,  the  reign  of  Will-  The  sov- 
iam  III  was  about  as  near  its  close  as  that  of  Elizabeth  e 
was  a  hundred  years  before.  In  1702  William  was  suc 
ceeded  by  Queen  Anne.  In  1714  George  I  followed  her, 
founding  the  dynasty  which  still  holds  the  throne.  George 
II  succeeded  him  in  1727;  and  in  1760  came  George  III, 
whose  reign  extended  till  1820.  The  names  of  these  sov 
ereigns  instantly  suggest  certain  familiar  facts,  of  which 
the  chief  is  that  during  the  first  half  of  the  century  the 
succession  remained  somewhat  in  doubt.  It  was  only  in 
1745,  when  the  reign  of  George  II  was  more  than  half 
finished,  that  the  last  fighting  with  Stuart  pretenders  oc 
curred  on  British  soil.  .  Though  on  British  soil,  however, 
this  contest  was  not  on  English :  there  has  been  no  actual 
warfare  in  England  since  1685,  when  the  battle  of  Sedg- 
moor  suppressed  the  Duke  of  Monmouth's  rebellion 
against  James  II.  These  obvious  facts  indicate  historical 
circumstances  which  have  had  profound  effect  on  English 
character. 

S3 


54  The  Eighteenth  Century 

During  the  past  two  centuries  the  commercial  prosperity 

of  England  has  exceeded  that  of  most  other  countries. 

An  imperative  condition  of  such  prosperity  is  peace  and 

domestic  order.     Good  business  demands  a  state  of  life 

which  permits  people  to  devote  themselves  to  their  own 

affairs,  trusting  politics  to  those  whose  office  it  is  to  gov- 

The  Eight-    em.     Under  such  circumstances  eighteenth- century  Eng- 

tur^n  C1 "  lishmen  had  small  delight  in  civil  wars  and  disputed 

England  a    successions.     Accordingly  they  displayed  increasing  confi- 

Period  of  i  •    i  i  i      •        T- 

stability,  dence  in  parliamentary  government,  which  could  give  Eng 
land  what  divine  right  could  no  longer  give  it, — prosperous 
public  order.  In  the  course  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
there  steadily  grew  a  body  of  public  opinion,  at  last  over 
whelming,  which  tended  to  the  maintenance  of  established 
institutions. 

So  this  eighteenth  century  brought  to  England  far  less 
radical  changes  than  those  which  marked  the  preceding. 
Though  the  interval  between  the  deaths  of  George  III 
and  William  of  Orange  is  far  longer  than  that  between 
William's  and  Queen  Elizabeth's,  we  can  feel  between  the 
Prince  of  Orange  and  his  native  English  successor  no 
such  contrast  as  we  felt  between  William  and  the  last 
Tudor  queen.  For  all  that,  the  century  was  not  stagnant ; 
and  perhaps  our  simplest  way  of  estimating  its  progress  is 
by  four  well- remembered  English  battles.  In  1704  was 
fought  the  battle  of  Blenheim;  in  1745,  that  of  Fontenoy; 
in  1759  Wolfe  fell  victorious  at  Quebec;  and  in  1798  Nel 
son  won  the  first  of  his  great  naval  victories — the  battle  of 
the  Nile. 

England          Whatever  else  these  battles  have  in  common,  all  four 

France        were  fougnt   against   the  French, — the  one  continental 

power  whose  coast  is  in  sight  of  England.     Throughout 


English  History— 1700  to  1800  55 

the  century,  apparently,  the  English  Channel  was  apt  to 
be  an  armed  frontier;  the  geographical  isolation  of  England 
was  tending  politically  toward  that  international  isolation 
which  until  our  own  time  has  been  so  marked.  A  second 
fact  about  these  four  battles  is  almost  as  obvious.  How 
ever  important  the  questions  at  issue,  people  nowadays 
have  generally  forgotten  what  Blenheim  and  Fontenoy 
were  fought  about.  The  other  two  battles  which  we  have 
called  to  mind,  those  of  Quebec  and  of  the  Nile,  were 
fought  in  the  second  half  of  the  century;  and  of  these 
tradition  still  remembers  the  objects.  The  battle  of  Que 
bec  finally  assured  the  dominance  in  America  of  the  Eng 
lish  Law.  The  battle  of  the  Nile  began  to  check  that 
French  revolutionary  power  which  under  the  transitory 
empire  of  Napoleon  once  seemed  about  to  conquer  the 
whole  civilized  world,  and  which  met  its  final  defeat  sev 
enteen  years  later  at  Waterloo. 

The  names  of  Blenheim  and  the  Nile  suggest  one  more  The  insu- 
fact:  each  of  these  battles  gave  England  a  national  hero.  England. 
Marlborough  we  have  already  glanced  at, — a  soldier  of  the 
closing  seventeenth  century  as  well  as  of  the  dawning  eight 
eenth,  whose  career  asserted  that  in  the  political  struggles 
of  continental  Europe  England  could  never  be  left  out  of 
account.  Nelson,  whose  name  is  almost  as  familiarly 
associated  with  the  battle  of  the  Nile  as  with  his  victorious 
death  at  Trafalgar,  stood  for  even  more ;  he  embodied  not 
only  that  dominion  of  the  sea  which  since  his  time  England 
has  maintained,  but  also  that  growing  imperial  power 
which  was  able  to  withstand  and  ultimately  to  check  the 
imperial  force  of  France  incarnate  in  Napoleon.  Im 
perial  though  Nelson's  victories  were,  however,  Nelson 
himself  was  almost  typically  insular.  As  we  compare 


56  The  Eighteenth  Century 

Marlborough,  the  chief  English  hero  of  the  opening 
century,  with  Nelson,  the  chief  English  hero  of  its  close, 
Marlborough  seems  a  European  and  Nelson  an  English 
man.  This  fact  implies  the  whole  course  of  English  his 
tory  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Just  as  the  internal 
history  of  England  tended  to  a  more  and  more  con 
servative  preservation  of  public  order,  so  her  international 
history  tended  more  and  more  to  make  Englishmen  a 
race  apart. 

Before  the  century  was  much  more  than  half  done,  this 
insular  English  race  had  on  its  hands  something  more  than 
the  island  where  its  language,  its  laws,  its  traditions,  and 
its  character  had  been  developed;  something  more,  be- 
Coioniai  sides,  than  those  American  colonies  whose  history  during 
their  first  century  we  have  already  traced.  As  the  name  of 
Quebec  has  already  reminded  us,  the  wars  with  the  French 
had  finally  resulted  in  the  conquest  by  the  English  Law 
of  those  American  regions  which  had  threatened  to  make 
American  history  that  of  a  ceaseless  conflict  between  Eng 
lish  institutions  and  those  of  continental  Europe.  The 
same  years  which  had  brought  about  the  conquest  of 
Canada  had  also  achieved  the  conquest  of  that  Indian 
Empire  which  still  makes  England  potent  in  Asia.  In 
1760,  when  George  III  came  to  the  throne,  imperial 
England,  which  included  the  thirteen  colonies  of  North 
America,  seemed  destined  to  impose  its  image  on  the 
greatest  continents  of  both  hemispheres. 

Twenty  years  later  the  American  Revolution  had  broken 
all  political  union  between  those  regions  in  the  old  world 
and  in  the  new  which  have  steadily  been  dominated  by 
English  Law.  That  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  the 
Common  Law  has  been  able  to  survive  this  shock  is  per- 


English  History — 1700  to  1800          57 

haps  the  most  conclusive  evidence  of  vitality  in  its  long 
and  varied  history.     The  Revolution  itself  we  shall  con-  The 
sider  more  closely  later:  one  fact  about  it  we  may  remark  ^Ve0""n 
here.     Until  the  Revolution,  America,  like  England,  had  tion= 
considered  France  a  traditional  enemy.     Open  warfare  and  French 
with  England  naturally  brought  America  and  France  to-  ^e^L°f 
gether;  without  French  aid,  indeed,  our  independence  could 
hardly  have  been  established.     A  very  few  years  conse 
quently  awoke  among  Americans  a  general  sentiment  of 
strong  nominal  sympathy  with  the  French.    At  the  moment 
when  this  declared  itself,  France  was  blindly  developing 
that  abstract  philosophy  of  human  rights  which  less  than 
twenty  years  later  resulted  in  the  French  Revolution. 
This  philosophy  was  eagerly  welcomed  in  America,  where 
it  has  been  popular  ever  since.     In  no  way,  however,  has 
America  evinced  its  English  origin  more  clearly  than  by 
the  serenity  with  which  it  has  forbidden  logic  to  meddle 
with  the  substantial  maintenance  of  legal  institutions. 

But  our  concern  now  is  with  England,  who  found  Conserva- 
herself,  when  the  French  Revolution  had  done  its  work,  ^^i"^ 
the  only  uninvaded  conservative  power  of  Europe. 
The  conservatism  for  which  she  stood,  and  has  stood 
ever  since,  is  of  the  kind  which  defends  tradition 
against  the  assaults  of  untested  theory.  Without  ig 
noring  human  rights,  it  maintains  that  the  most  precious 
human  rights  are  those  which  have  proved  humanly 
feasible;  abstract  ideals  of  law  and  government,  how 
ever  admirable  on  paper,  it  regards  with  such  suspicion 
as  in  daily  life  practical  men  feel  concerning  the  va 
garies  of  plausible  thinkers  who  cannot  make  both  ends 
meet.  The  conservatism  of  eighteenth-century  England, 
in  short,  defended  against  untested  philosophy  the  ex- 


58  The  Eighteenth  Century 

perience  embodied  in  the  Common  Law;  it  defended 
custom,  which  at  worst  had  proved  tolerable,  against 
theory,  which  had  never  been  put  to  proof.  So  in  this 
closing  struggle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  con 
tinued  for  half  a  generation  after  the  century  ended, 
external  forces  combined  with  internal  ones, — with  a  full 
century  of  domestic  peace,  and  the  final  settlement  of  the 
royal  succession, — to  develop  in  England  that  isolated,  de 
liberate,  somewhat  slow-witted  character  which  foreigners 
now  suppose  permanently  English. 

John  The  typical  Englishman  of  modern  caricature  is  named 

John  Bull.  What  he  looks  like  is  familiar  to  any  reader 
of  the  comic  papers.  There  is  a  deep  significance,  when 
we  stop  to  think,  in  the  fact  that  the  costume  still  attrib 
uted  to  John  Bull  is  virtually  that  of  the  English  middle 
classes  in  1800.  No  date  better  marks  the  moment  when 
external  forces  and  internal  had  combined  to  make  typical 
of  England  the  insular,  vigorous,  intolerant  character  em^ 
bodied  in  that  familiar  and  portly  figure.  Whatever  else 
John  Bull  may  be,  he  is  not  spontaneous,  not  enthusiastic, 
and  not  versatile. 


II 

ENGLISH  LITERATURE  FROM  1700  TO  1800 

REFERENCES 

In  addition  to  the  general  authorities  (see  p.  vii)  one  may  consult 
Alexandre  Beljame,  Le  public  et  les  hommes  de  letires  en  Angleterre  au 
dix-huiticme  siccle,  Paris:  Hachette,  1881;  Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  English 
Literature  and  Society  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  New  York:  Putnams, 
1904;  Edmund  Gosse,  A  History  oj  Eighteenth  Century  Literature, 
London:  Macmillan,  1889;  T.  S.  Perry,  English  Literature  in  the  Eight 
eenth  Century,  New  York:  Harper,  1883;  H.  A.  Beers,  A  History  of 
English  Romanticism  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  New  York:  Holt,  1899. 

THE  English  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  very  The  Three 
different  from  that  of  the  century  before.  The  three  lit-  Periods- 
erary  periods  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  dominated 
by  three  great  figures, — those  of  Shakspere,  of  Milton, 
and  of  Dry  den.  While  no  such  eminence  as  theirs  marks 
the  literary  history  of  the  century  with  which  we  are  now 
concerned,  three  typical  figures  of  its  different  periods  may 
conveniently  be  called  to  mind, — Addison,  Johnson,  and 
Burke.  The  very  mention  of  these  names  must  instantly 
define  the  contrast  now  worth  our  attention.  The  sev 
enteenth  century  was  one  of  decided  literary  development, 
or  at  least  of  change.  In  comparison  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury  was  one  of  marked  monotony. 

The  literature  of  its  beginning  is  traditionally  associated  The  Pe- 
with  the  name  of  Queen  Anne  almost  as  closely  as  that  of  Q°een 
a  hundred  years  before  is  with  the  name  of  Queen  Eliza-  Anne. 
beth.     In  1702,  when  Anne  came  to  the  throne,  neither 
Addisoa,  Steele,  Swift,  Defoe,  nor  Pope  had  attained  full 

59 


60  The  Eighteenth  Century 

reputation;  in  1714,  when  she  died,  all  five  had  done 
enough  to  assure  their  permanence,  and  to  fix  the  type  of 
literature  for  which  their  names  collectively  stand.  Prose 
they  had  brought  to  that  deliberate,  balanced,  far  from 
passionate  form  which  it  was  to  retain  for  several  genera 
tions;  poetry  they  had  cooled  into  that  rational  heroic 
couplet  which  was  to  survive  in  America  until  the  last 
days  of  Dr.  Holmes.  They  had  brought  into  being  mean 
while  a  new  form  of  publication, — the  periodical, — destined 
to  indefinite  development.  From  the  time  when  the  first 
Taller  appeared  in  1709  to  the  present  day,  a  consid 
erable  part  of  our  lasting  literature  has  been  published  in 
periodicals;  and  periodicals  bespeak,  before  all  things 
else,  a  permanent  and  increasing  literary  public.  If  any 

Addison.      one  name  can  imply  all  this,  it  is  surely  that  of  the  urbane 
Joseph  Addison  (1672-1719). 

In  the  middle  of  the  century,  when  the  reign  of  George 
II  was  two-thirds  over,  English  literature  was  producing 
a  good  many  works  which  have  survived.  Between  1748 
and  1752,  for  example,  there  were  published  Richardson's 
Clarissa  Harlowe,  Smollett's  Roderick  Random  and  Pere 
grine  Pickle,  Thomson's  Castle  of  Indolence,  Fielding's 
Tom  Jones  and  Amelia,  Johnson's  Vanity  of  Human 
Wishes  and  a  considerable  portion  of  his  Rambler,  Gray's 
Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,  and  Goldsmith's  Life  of 
Nash.  Sterne's  work  and  Goldsmith's  best  writing 
came  only  a  little  later;  and  during  these  same  five 
years  appeared  Wesley's  Plain  Account  of  the  People 
Called  Methodists,  Hume's  Inquiry  into  the  Human  Un 
derstanding,  and  his  Inquiry  concerning  the  Principles 

The  Mid-     o]  Morals  and  Political  Discourses.     The  last  two  names 
ury<      deserve  our  notice  because  Wesley's  recalls  that  strenuous 


English  Literature — 1700  to  1800        61 

outburst  against  religious  formalism  which  has  bred  the 
most  potent  body  of  modern  English  Dissenters,  and 
Hume's  that  rational  tendency  in  philosophy  which  during 
the  eighteenth  century  was  far  more  characteristic  of 
France  than  of  England.  Putting  these  aside,  we  may 
find  in  the  literary  record  of  this  mid-century  a  state  of 
things  somewhat  different  from  that  which  prevailed 
under  Queen  Anne.  Another  considerable  form  of  Eng 
lish  literature  had  come  into  existence, — the  prose  novel, 
whose  germs  were  already  evident  in  the  character  sketches 
of  the  Spectator,  and  in  the  vivacious  incidents  of  Defoe. 
Poetry,  preserving  studied  correctness  of  form,  was  be 
ginning  to  tend  back  toward  something  more  like  roman 
tic  sentiment;  the  prose  essay  had  grown  heavier  and 
less  vital.  For  the  moment  the  presiding  genius  of 
English  letters  was  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  (1709-1784),  Johnson, 
throughout  whose  work  we  can  feel  that  the  formalism 
which  under  Queen  Anne  had  possessed  the  grace  of 
freshness  was  becoming  traditional.  In  conventional 
good  sense  his  writings,  like  those  which  surrounded 
them,  remained  vigorous;  but  their  vigor  was  very  unlike 
the  spontaneous,  enthusiastic  versatility  of  Elizabethan 
letters. 

About  twenty-five  years  later  comes  a  date  so  memora 
ble  to  Americans  that  a  glance  at  its  literary  record  in 
England  can  hardly  help  being  suggestive.  The  year 
from  which  our  national  independence  is  officially  dated 
came  at  the  height  of  Burke's  powers,  and  just  between 
Sheridan's  Rivals,  published  the  year  before,  and  his  School 
for  Scandal,  of  the  year  after.  In  the  record  of  English 
publications,  1776  is  marked  by  no  important  works  of 
pure  literature;  but  in  that  year  Hume  died,  Jeremy  Ben- 


62  The  Eighteenth  Century 

tham  published  his  Fragment  on  Government,  Gibbon 
the  first  volume  of  his  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Em 
pire,  Adam  Smith  his  Wealth  0}  Nations,  and  Thomas 
Paine  his  Common  Sense;  the  second  edition  of  the  En 
cyclopedia  Britannica,  too,  appeared  in  ten  volumes.  In 
1776,  it  seems,  things  literary  in  England,  as  well  as  things 
political  in  the  British  Empire,  were  taking  a  somewhat 
serious  turn. 

The  close  In  the  last  ten  years  of  the  century,  the  years  when  the 
century  French  Revolution  was  at  its  fiercest,  there  appeared  in 
England  works  by  Burke  and  by  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  BoswelFs 
Johnson,  Cowper's  Homer,  Paine's  Rights  of  Man,  Rog- 
ers's  Pleasures  0}  Memory,  poems  by  Burns,  two  or  three 
books  by  Hannah  More,  the  first  poems  of  Wordsworth, 
Coleridge,  Southey,  Scott,  and  Landor,  Godwin's  Caleb 
Williams,  Lewis's  Monk,  Miss  Burney's  Camilla,  Roscoe's 
Life  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  and  Charles  Lamb's  Rosa 
mund  Gray.  A  curious  contrast  this  shows  to  the  state 
of  things  in  contemporary  France.  Though  in  political 
matters  the  French  had  broken  from  tradition,  their 
literature  had  to  wait  thirty  years  more  for  liberation 
from  the  tyranny  of  conventional  form.  England  mean 
while,  more  tenacious  of  political  tradition  than  ever  be 
fore,  had  begun  to  disregard  the  rigid  literary  tradition 
which  had  lasted  since  the  time  of  Dryden.  The  Lyrical 
Ballads  of  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  which  may  be 
regarded  in  literature  as  declaring  the  independence  of 
the  individual  spirit,  appeared  in  1798,  the  year  when 
Nelson  fought  the  battle  of  the  Nile;  but  at  first  they 
made  no  great  impression.  Fiction  at  the  same  time 
seemed  less  vital.  In  the  last  decade  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  though  formal  tradition  was  broken,  the  renewed 


English  Literature— 1700  to  1800        63 

strength  which  was  to  animate  English  literature  for  the 
next  thirty  years  was  not  yet  quite  evident.  At  the 
moment,  too,  no  figure  in  English  letters  had  even  such 
predominance  as  that  of  Addison  in  Queen  Anne's  time, 
far  less  such  as  Johnson's  had  been  in  the  later  years  of 
George  II.  Of  the  elder  names  mentioned  in  our  last  Burke, 
hasty  list  the  most  memorable  seems  that  of  Edmund 
Burke  (1729-1797). 

These  names  of  Addison,  Johnson,  and  Burke  prove 
quite  as  significant  of  English  literature  in  the  eighteenth 
century  as  those  of  Shakspere,  Milton,  and  Dryden  proved 
of  that  literature  a  century  before.  Shakspere,  Milton, 
and  Dryden  seem  men  of  three  different  epochs;  at  least 
comparatively,  Addison,  Johnson,  and  Burke  seem  men 
of  a  single  type.  After  all,  the  mere  names  tell  enough. 
Think  of  Shakspere  and  Dryden  together,  and  then  of 
Addison  and  Burke.  Think  of  Milton  as  the  figure  who 
intervenes  between  the  first  pair,  and  of  Johnson  similarly 
intervening  between  the  second.  You  can  hardly  fail  to 
perceive  the  trend  of  English  literature.  In  1600  it  was 
alive  with  the  spontaneity,  the  enthusiasm,  and  the  versa 
tility  of  the  Elizabethan  spirit.  By  Dryden's  time  this 
was  already  extinct;  throughout  the  century  which  fol 
lowed  him  it  showed  little  symptom  of  revival.  The  ro 
mantic  revival  wrhich  in  Burke's  time  was  just  beginning, 
had,  to  be  sure,  enthusiasm;  but  this  was  too  conscious  to 
seem  spontaneous.  And  although  the  names  of  Rogers, 
Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Lamb,  Landor,  and  Moore,  who 
had  all  begun  writing  before  1800,  suggest  something  like 
versatility,  it  is  rather  variety.  They  differ  from  one 
another,  but  compared  with  the  Elizabethan  poets  each 
seems  limited,  inflexible.  Versatility  can  hardly  be  held 


64  The  Eighteenth  Century 

to  characterize  any  English  man  of  letters  who  came  to 
maturity  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

So  far  as  literature  is  concerned,  accordingly,  that  cen 
tury  seems  more  and  more  a  period  of  robustly  formal 
tradition;  rational,  sensible,  prejudiced,  and  toward  the 
end  restless;  admirable  and  manly  in  a  thousand  ways, 
but  even  further,  if  possible,  "from  the  spontaneous,  en 
thusiastic  versatility  of  Elizabethan  days  than  was  the 
period  of  Dryden. 


Ill 

AMERICAN  HISTORY  FROM  1700  TO  1800 

REFERENCES 

GENERAL  AUTHORITIES:  Excellent  short  accounts  are  Channing,  Stu 
dent's  History,  128-314;  Thwaites,  Colonies,  Chapters  xi-xiv;  Hart, 
Formation  of  the  Union,  1-175. 

SPECIAL  WORKS  :  The  authorities  mentioned  in  the  brief  bibliographies 
at  the  beginnings  of  chapters  in  the  books  mentioned  above,  and,  for 
minute  study,  the  works  referred  to  in  the  larger  bibliographies  mentioned 
below. 

BIBLIOGRAPHIES:  Channing  and  Hart,  Guide,  §§  131-166;  Winsor's 
America,  V-VIII. 

IN  broad  outline  the  history  of  America  during  the 
eighteenth  century  seems  as  different  from  that  of  Eng 
land  as  was  the  case  a  century  earlier.  Two  facts  which  we 
remarked  in  seventeenth-century  America  remained  un 
changed.  In  the  first  place  no  one  really  cared  much  who 
occupied  the  throne.  The  question  of  who  was  sent  out 
as  governor  of  a  colony  was  more  important  than  that 
of  who  sent  him.  In  the  second  place,  the  absorptive 
power  of  the  native  American  race  remained  undiminished, 
as  indeed  it  seems  still  to  remain.  Though  there  was 
comparatively  less  immigration  to  America  in  the  eight 
eenth  century  than  in  the  seventeenth  or  the  nineteenth, 
there  was  enough  to  show  our  surprising  power  of  assimi 
lation. 

In  another  aspect,  the  history  of  America  during  the  increased 
eighteenth  century  is  unlike  that  of  the  century  before.  ^pc°r~f 
Until  1700,  at  least  in  New  England,  the  dominant  Eng-  the  state- 

65 


66  The  Eighteenth  Century 

lish  ideal  had  been  rather  the  moral  than  the  political, — 
the  tradition  of  the  English  Bible  rather  than  that  of  the 
Common  Law.  The  fathers  of  New  England  had  almost 
succeeded  in  establishing  "a  theocracy  as  near  as  might 
be  to  that  which  was  the  glory  of  Israel."  The  story  of 
the  Mathers  shows  how  this  theocratic  ambition  came  to 
grief.  Church  and  State  in  America  tended  to  separate. 
Once  separate,  the  State  was  bound  to  control  in  public 
affairs;  and  so  the  Church  began  to  decline  into  formalism. 
The  eighteenth  century  in  America,  therefore,  was  one  of 
growing  material  prosperity,  under  the  chief  guidance  no 
longer  of  the  clergy,  but  rather  of  that  social  class  to 
whose  commercial  energy  this  prosperity  was  chiefly  due. 
NewEng-  Meanwhile  throughout  the  first  half  of  our  eighteenth 
N°war  century,  external  affairs  constantly  took  a  pretty  definite 
France.  form.  Increased  commercial  prosperity  and  superficial 
social  changes  could  not  alter  the  fact  that  until  the  con 
quest  of  Canada  the  English  colonies  in  America  were 
constantly  menaced  by  those  disturbances  which  tradi 
tion  still  calls  the  French  and  Indian  wars.  These  began 
before  the  seventeenth  century  closed.  In  1690  Sir  Will 
iam  Phips  captured  Port  Royal,  now  Annapolis,  in  Nova 
Scotia ;  later  in  the  year  he  came  to  grief  in  an  expedition 
against  Quebec  itself;  in  1704  came  the  still  remembered 
sack  of  Deerfield  in  the  Connecticut  valley;  in  1745  came 
Sir  William  PepperelPs  conquest  of  Louisbourg;  in  1755 
came  Braddock's  defeat;  in  1759  came  Wolfe's  final  con 
quest  at  Quebec.  When  the  eighteenth  century  began, — 
as  the  encircling  names  of  Quebec,  Montreal,  Chicago, 
St.  Louis,  and  New  Orleans  may  still  remind  us, — it  was 
doubtful  whether  the  continent  which  is  now  the  United 
States  would  ultimately  be  controlled  by  the  traditions  of 


American  History — 1700  to  1800         67 

England  or  by  those  of  continental  Europe.  Throughout 
the  first  half  of  the  century  this  question  was  still  in  doubt, 
— never  more  so,  perhaps,  than  when  Braddock  fell  in 
what  is  now  Western  Pennsylvania.  The  victory  on  the 
Plains  of  Abraham  settled  the  fate  of  a  hemisphere.  Once 
for  all,  the  continent  of  America  passed  into  the  control  of 
the  race  which  still  maintains  there  the  traditions  of  Eng 
lish  Law. 

In  the  second  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century  came 
a  movement  which  throws  a  good  deal  of  light  on  Ameri 
can  temperament.  The  dissenting  sect  commonly  called 
Methodist  originated  in  a  fervent  evangelical  protest 
against  the  corrupt,  unspiritualized  condition  of  the  Eng 
lish  Church  during  the  reign  of  George  II.  Though 
Methodism  made  permanent  impression  on  the  middle 
class  of  England,  it  can  hardly  be  regarded  in  England 
as  a  social  force  of  the  first  historical  importance.  Nor 
were  any  of  its  manifestations  there  sufficient  to  attract 
the  instant  attention  of  people  who  now  consider  general 
English  history.  In  America  the  case  was  different.  Dur 
ing  the  earlier  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  Puritan 
churches  had  begun  to  stiffen  into  formalism.  Though 
this  never  went  so  far  as  to  divorce  religion  from  life,  there 
was  such  decline  of  religious  fervor  as  to  give  the  more 
earnest  clergy  serious  ground  for  alarm. 

In  1738  George  Whitefield,  perhaps  the  most  powerful 
of  English  revivalists,  first  visited  the  colonies.     In  that 
year  he  devoted  himself  to  the  spiritual  awakening  of  The  Great 
Georgia.     In    1740    he    came    to    New    England.     The  £j^a 
Great  Awakening  of  religion  during  the  next  few  years 
was  largely  due  to  his  preaching.     At  first  the  clergy  were 
disposed  ardently  to  welcome  this  revival  of  religious  en- 


68  The  Eighteenth  Century 

thusiasm.  Soon,  however,  the  revival  took  a  turn  at  which 
the  more  conservative  clergy  were  alarmed;  in  1744  Har 
vard  College  formally  protested  against  the  excesses  of 
Whitefield,  and  in  1745  Yale  followed  this  example.  The 
religious  enthusiasm  which  possessed  the  lower  classes  of 
eighteenth- century  America,  in  short,  grotesquely  outran 
the  gravely  passionate  ecstasies  of  the  immigrant  Puritans. 
So  late  as  Cotton  Mather's  time,  the  devout  of  New  Eng 
land  were  still  rewarded  with  mystic  visions,  wherein 
divine  voices  and  heavenly  figures  revealed  themselves  to 
prayerful  keepers  of  fasts  and  vigils.  The  Great  Awaken 
ing  expressed  itself  in  mad  shoutings  and  tearing  off  of 
garments.  The  personal  contrast  between  the  immigrant 
Puritans  and  Whitefield  typifies  the  difference.  The  old 
ministers  had  entered  on  their  duties  with  all  the  authority 
of  degrees  from  English  universities ;  Whitefield  began  life 
as  a  potboy  in  a  tavern.  Yet  the  Great  Awakening  testifies 
to  one  lasting  fact, — a  far-reaching  spontaneity  and  en 
thusiasm  among  the  humbler  classes  of  America,  which, 
once  aroused,  could  produce  social  phenomena  much 
more  startling  than  Methodism  produced  in  King  George 
II 's  England. 

The  people  who  had  been  so  profoundly  stirred  by  this 
Great  Awakening  were  the  same  who  in  1776  declared 
themselves  independent  of  the  mother  country.  The 
The  Revo-  American  Revolution  is  important  enough  for  separate 
consideration.  Before  speaking  of  that,  we  had  best  con 
sider  the  literary  expression  of  America  up  to  1776.  So,  in 
this  general  consideration  of  history,  we  need  only  recall  a 
few  dates.  The  Stamp  Act  was  passed  in  1765,  the  year 
in  which  Blackstone  published  the  first  volume  of  his 
Commentaries  on  the  Law  of  England.  Lexington,  Con- 


American  History— 1700  to  1800         69 

cord,  and  Bunker  Hill  came  in  1775,  the  year  in  which 
Burke  delivered  his  masterly  speech  on  Conciliation  with 
America.  On  the  Fourth  of  July,  1776,  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  signed.  American  independence 
was  finally  acknowledged  by  the  peace  of  1783.  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  adopted  in  1789. 
In  1800  the  presidency  of  John  Adams  was  drawing  to  a 
close,  and  Washington  was  dead.  Now,  very  broadly 
speaking,  the  forces  which  expressed  themselves  in  these 
familiar  facts  were  forces  which  tended  in  America  to 
destroy  the  fortunes  of  established  and  wealthy  people, 
and  to  substitute  as  the  ruling  class  throughout  the 
country  one  more  like  that  which  had  been  stirred  by 
the  Great  Awakening.  In  other  words,  the  Revolution 
once  more  brought  to  the  surface  of  American  life  the  sort 
of  natives  whom  the  Great  Awakening  shows  so  fully  to 
have  preserved  the  spontaneity  and  the  enthusiasm  of 
earlier  days. 

During  the  eighteenth  century,  in  brief,  America  seems  Develop- 
slowly  to  have   been  developing  into    an    independent  ^^rican 
nationality  as  conservative  of  its  traditions  as  England  Nationality. 
was  of  hers,  but  less  obviously  so  because  American  tra 
ditions  were  far  less  threatened.     The  geographical  iso 
lation  of  America  combined  with  the  absorptive  power  of 
our  native  race  to  preserve  the  general  type  of  character 
which  America  had  displayed  from  its  settlement.     In 
the  history  of  native  Americans,  the  seventeenth  century 
has  already  defined  itself  as  a  period  of  inexperience.     The 
fact  that  American  conditions  changed  so  little  until  the 
Revolution  implies  that  this  national  inexperience  per 
sisted.     In  many  superficial  aspects,  no  doubt,  the  native 
Americans  of  1776,  particularly  of  the  prosperous  class, 


70  The  Eighteenth  Century 

appeared  to  be  men  of  the  eighteenth  century.  In  per 
sonal  temper,  however,  Thomas  Hutchinson  and  Samuel 
Adams  were  far  more  like  John  Winthrop  and  Roger 
Williams  than  Chatham  and  Burke  were  like  Bacon  and 
Lord  Burleigh.  One  inference  seems  clear:  the  Ameri 
cans  of  the  revolutionary  period  retained  to  an  incalcula 
ble  degree  qualities  which  had  faded  from  ancestral  Eng 
land  with  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 


IV 

LITERATURE  IN  AMERICA  FROM  1700  TO  1776 

REFERENCES 

GENERAL  REFERENCES:  On  the  general  course  of  literature  in  America 
between  1700  and  1776,  see  Tyler;  for  selections,  see  Stedman  and  Hutch- 
inson,  Vol.  II. 

PERIODICAL  PUBLICATIONS:  See  Isaiah  Thomas,  History  of  Printing 
in  America,  Worcester,  1810;  Frederic  Hudson,  Journalism  in  the  United 
States  from  1690  to  1872,  New  York:  Harper,  1873;  Tyler,  II,  301-306. 

WOOLMAN:  Woolman's  Journal,  with  an  introduction  by  Whittier, 
Boston:  Osgood,  1873;  on  Woolman  in  general,  see  Tyler,  Lit.  Hist.  Ant. 
Rev.,  Chapter  xxxvii. 

HUTCHINSON:  Of  Hutchinson's  History  of  the  Colony  of  Massachu 
setts-Bay  (Vol.  I,  Boston,  1764;  Vol.  II,  Boston,  1767;  Vol.  Ill,  London, 
1828)  the  first  two  volumes  have  been  out  of  print  for  over  a  century,  the 
last  edition  having  been  published  at  Salem  and  Boston  in  1795;  the  third 
volume  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  London  edition  of  1828.  Hutchinson 
also  published  a  Collection  of  Original  Papers  Relative  to  the  History  of 
the  Colony  o)  Massachusetts-Bay,  Boston,  1 769.  For  biography,  see  P.  O. 
Hutchinson,  The  Diary  and  Letters  of  His  Excellency  Thomas  Hutchin 
son,  Esq.,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1884-86;  J.  K.  Hosmer,  The  Life  of 
Thomas  Hutchinson,  Boston:  Houghton,  1896.  The  late  Charles  Deane 
compiled  a  Hutchinson  bibliography,  which  was  privately  printed  at 
Boston  in  1857;  see  also,  on  the  bibliography  of  Hutchinson,  Winsor's 
America,  III,  344. 

As  the  material  prosperity  of  America  increased,  it 
tended  to  develop  the  middle  colonies;  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  most  important  town  in 
America  was  not  Boston,  but  Philadelphia.  And  though 
in  purely  religious  writing  New  England  kept  the  lead, 
the  centre  of  its  religious  thought  had  shifted  from  the 
shore  of  Massachusetts  Bay  to  that  of  Long  Island  Sound. 


72  The  Eighteenth  Century 

Growth  of  Some  familiar  dates  in  the  history  of  American  educa- 
Outsldc8  ti°n  emphasize  these  facts.  Yale  College,  founded  in 
NewEng-  1 700,  began  its  career  under  King  William  III,  until 
whose  reign  the  only  established  school  of  higher  learning 
in  America  had  been  Harvard  College,  founded  under 
Charles  I.  The  avowed  purpose  of  the  founding  of  Yale 
was  to  maintain  the  orthodox  traditions  threatened  by 
the  constantly  growing  liberalism  of  Harvard.  Under 
George  II,  three  considerable  colleges  were  founded  in 
the  middle  colonies.  In  1746,  Princeton  College  was  es 
tablished  to  maintain  an  orthodoxy  as  stout  as  that  of 
Yale.  In  1 749,  partly  under  the  auspices  of  the  American 
Philosophical  Society  which  had  lately  been  founded  by 
Franklin,  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  began  an  aca 
demic  history  which  more  than  most  in  America  has  kept 
free  from  entanglement  with  dogma.  In  1754,  King's 
College,  now  Columbia  University,  was  founded  at  New 
York.  Meanwhile  Harvard  College  had  done  little  more 
than  preserve  its  own  prudently  liberal  traditions,  with  no 
marked  alteration  in  either  character  or  size.  The  higher 
intellectual  activity  of  America  was  clearly  tending  for  a 
while  to  centralize  itself  elsewhere  than  in  those  New 
England  regions  where  the  American  intellect  had  first 
been  active. 

These  two  changes,  geographical  and  temperamental, 
may  be  shown  by  summarizing  the  titles  of  the  chief 
American  publications,  as  they  are  recorded  in  Whitcomb's 
Chronological  Outlines  of  American  Literature,  during  such 
typical  periods  as  1701-1705,  1731-1735,  and  1761-1765. 
Between  1701  and  1705  Whitcomb  mentions  eighteen 
titles,  of  which  fifteen — ten  by  the  Mathers — belong  in 
New  England,  one  in  the  Middle  States,  and  two  in  the 


Literature  in  America — 1 700  to  1 776       73 

South.  Of  these  three  publications  outside  New  England, 
the  only  one  which  is  now  remembered  is  a  History  of  the 
Present  State  of  Virginia  (1705)  by  ROBERT  BEVERLEY 
(about  1675-1716).  At  this  period,  publication  evidently 
centred  in  New  England,  and  revealed  the  immense  in 
dustry  and  influence  of  the  Mathers.  And  all  of  Whit- 
comb's  eighteen  titles  fall  under  our  familiar  headings  of 
(i)  Religious  writings  and  (2)  Historical  writings. 

Between  1731  and  1735  Whitcomb  mentions  twenty-nine 
titles,  of  which  twenty-five  are  by  known  individual  writers. 
Of  these  twenty-five  titles,  fourteen  are  from  New  Eng 
land  and  eleven  from  the  Middle  and  Southern  States. 
Again,  of  these  twenty-five  titles,  only  fifteen  can  be 
brought  under  the  headings  of  Religion  and  History, 
which  we  found  to  include  nearly  all  the  publications  of 
the  seventeenth  century  and  of  the  first  few  years  of  the  Diddle  th 
eighteenth.  Among  the  writings  between  1731  and  1735  colonies, 
which  are  neither  historical  nor  religious  are  several  which 
cannot  possibly  be  called  literature,  such  as  a  book  about 
the  birds  of  the  Carolinas,  a  spelling-book,  and  a  Hebrew 
grammar.  Among  the  remaining  titles  are  Bachelors1 
Hall,  an  imitative  poem  in  couplets,  by  GEORGE  WEBB; 
Poor  Richard's  Almanac;  FRANKLIN'S  Essay  on  Human 
Vanity;  and  JAMES  LOGAN'S  Cato's  Moral  Distichs 
Englished  in  Couplets.  These  all  came  from  Philadelphia. 

Between  1761  and  1765,  Whitcomb  mentions  thirty-one 
titles  of  works  by  known  individual  writers;  and  these 
are  almost  exactly  divided  between  New  England  and 
the  Middle  and  Southern  colonies.  Religion  and  the 
old-fashioned  kind  of  history  include  only  nine;  of  those 
remaining,  a  few  are  scientific,  and  one  is  dramatic,  but 
much  the  greater  number — twelve — are,  to  quote  the  title 


74  The  Eighteenth  Century 

Political      of  one  of  them,  Considerations  on  Behalf  of  the  Colonies. 
ting'      Some  of  this  political  writing  is  in  verse  ;  some  of  it  takes 
the  form  of  the  periodical  essay.     Both  essays  and  verse 
closely  imitate  earlier  English  work. 

These  few  titles  show  that  New  England,  supreme  at 
the  beginning  of  the  century,  was  giving  place,  as  regards 
number  of  writers,  literary  feeling,  and  effort  at  purely 
literary  forms,  to  the  middle  colonies.  Again,  as  the  cen 
tury  went  on  the  concerns  of  the  State  began  to  seem 
more  pressing  than  those  of  the  Church.  Especially  the 
problem  of  independence  from  Great  Britain  forced  itself 
upon  writers  and  readers  alike.  The  political  writing 
which  resulted  often  took  the  form  of  light  satire,  bur 
lesque,  or  mock  epic.  Thus  both  the  form  and  the  sub 
stance  of  American  writing  in  the  middle  of  the  century 
were  less  severe  than  had  been  the  case  earlier.  We  shall 
now  look  a  little  more  closely  at  two  or  three  phases  of 
writing  which  illustrate  this  change. 

During  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  there 
had  rapidly  grown  up  in  America  a  profusion  of  periodical 
publications.  We  had  no  Taller,  to  be  sure,  or  Specta 
tor;  but  from  1704,  when  the  Boston  News  Letter  was  es- 
Newspapers  tablished,  we  had  a  constantly  increasing  number  of  news- 
Ailanacs  Papers.  A  dozen  years  before  the  Revolution  these  had 
everywhere  become  as  familiar  and  as  popular  as  were 
those  annual  almanacs  which  had  already  sprung  up  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  of  which  the  most  highly  de 
veloped  example  was  Franklin's  Poor  Richard's  Almanac. 
These  indications  of  every-day  reading  show  that  the 
eighteenth  century  in  America  was  a  period  of  grow 
ing  intellectual  activity  and  curiosity  among  the  whole 
people. 


Literature  in  America — 1700  to  1776       75 

In  the  middle  colonies  there  was  meanwhile  developing 
an  aspect  of  religion  very  different  from  that  which  com 
mended  itself  to  the  orthodox  Calvinism  of  New  England. 
Undoubtedly  the  most  important  religious  writing  in  Amer 
ica  at  the  period  with  which  we  are  now  concerned  was  that 
of  Jonathan  Edwards.  But  the  memory  of  another  Ameri 
can,  of  widely  different  temper,  has  tended,  during  a  cen 
tury  and  more,  to  strengthen  in  the  estimation  of  those 
who  love  comfortable  spiritual  thought  expressed  with 
fervent  simplicity.  JOHN  WOOLMAN  (1720-1772)  was  a  John 
Quaker  farmer  of  New  Jersey,  who  became  an  itinerant  Wo( 
preacher  in  1746,  and  who  began  to  testify  vigorously 
against  slavery  as  early  as  1753.  It  was  the  Quakers' 
faith  that  we  may  save  ourselves  by  voluntarily  accept 
ing  Christ, —  by  willing  attention  to  the  still  small  voice 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  This  belief  Woolman  phrased  so 
sweetly  and  memorably  that  Charles  Lamb  advised  his 
readers  to  "get  the  writings  of  John  Woolman  by  heart, 
and  love  the  early  Quakers." 

Though  such  writings  as  Woolman's  throw  light  on  a 
growing  phase  of  American  sentiment,  they  were  not 
precisely  literature.  Neither  was  such  political  writing 
as  we  shall  consider  more  particularly  when  we  come  to 
the  Revolution ;  nor  yet  was  the  more  scholarly  historical 
writing,  of  which  the  principal  example  is  probably  the 
History  of  the  Colony  oj  Massachusets-Bay,  by  Governor 
THOMAS  HUTCHINSON  (1711-1780).  Neglected  by  rea-  Thomas 
son  of  the  traditional  unpopularity  which  sincere,  self- 
sacrificing  Toryism  brought  on  the  author,  the  last  native 
governor  of  provincial  Massachusetts,  the  book  remains 
an  admirable  piece  of  serious  historical  writing,  not  vivid, 
picturesque,  or  very  interesting,  but  dignified,  earnest, 


76  The  Eighteenth  Century 

and  just.     In  the  history  of  pure  literature,  however,  it 
has  no  great  importance. 

Further  still  from  pure  literature  seems  the  work  of  the 
two  men  of  this  period  who  for  general  reasons  now  deserve 
such  separate  consideration  as  we  gave  Cotton  Mather. 
They  deserve  it  as  representing  two  distinct  aspects  of 
American  character,  which  closely  correspond  with  the 
two  ideals  most  inseparable  from  our  native  language. 
One  of  these  ideals  is  the  religious  or  moral,  inherent  in 
the  lasting  tradition  of  the  English  Bible;  the  other  is  the 
political  or  social,  equally  inherent  in  the  equally  lasting 
tradition  of  the  English  Law.  In  the  pre- revolutionary 
years  of  our  eighteenth  century,  the  former  was  most  char- 
Edwards  acteristically  expressed  by  Jonathan  Edwards;  and  the 
Franklin,  kind  of  national  temper  which  must  always  underlie  the 
latter  was  incarnate  in  Benjamin  Franklin.  Before 
considering  the  Revolution  and  the  literature  which  came 
with  it  and  after  it,  we  may  best  attend  to  these  men  in 
turn. 


JONATHAN   EDWARDS 

REFEEENCES 

WORKS:  Works,  10  vols.,  New  York:  Carvill,  1830;  Works,  2  vols., 
London:  Bohn,  1865. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  A.  V.  G.  Allen,  Jonathan  Edwards,  Bos 
ton:  Houghton,  1889;  S.  E.  Dwight,  The  Life  of  President  Edwards,  New 
York:  Carvill,  1830;  Holmes,  "Edwards,"  (Works, VIII,  361-401);  Sir 
Leslie  Stephen,  "  Edwards, "  (Hours  in  a  Library,  2d  series,  Chapter  ii, 
London,  1876);  Jonathan  Edwards,  a  Retrospect,  ed.  H.  N.  Gardiner, 
Boston:  Houghton,  1901. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Allen's  Edwards,  391-393. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  16-26;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  II,  373—411. 

JONATHAN  EDWARDS  was  born  at  East  Windsor,  Con-  Life. 
necticut,  on  October  5,  1703.  In  1720  he  took  his  degree 
at  Yale,  where  he  was  a  tutor  from  1724  to  1726.  In  1727 
he  was  ordained  colleague  to  his  grandfather,  Solomon 
Stoddard,  minister,  of  Northampton,  Massachusetts. 
Here  he  remained  settled  until  1750,  when  his  growing 
severity  of  discipline  resulted  in  his  dismissal.  The  next 
year  he  became  a  missionary  to  the  Stockbridge  Indians, 
in  a  region  at  that  time  remote  from  civilization.  In  1757 
he  was  chosen  to  succeed  his  son-in-law,  Burr,  as  Presi 
dent  of  Princeton  College.  He  died  at  Princeton,  in  con 
sequence  of  inoculation  for  small-pox,  on  March  22, 1758. 

Beyond  doubt,  Edwards  has  had  more  influence  on 
subsequent  thought  than  any  other  American  theologian. 
In  view  of  this,  the  uneventfulness  of  his  life,  so  utterly 
apart  from  public  affairs,  becomes  significant  of  the  con- 

77 


78  The  Eighteenth  Century 

dition  of  the  New  England  ministry  during  his  lifetime. 
He  was  born  hardly  two  years  after  Increase  Mather,  the 
lifelong  champion  of  theocracy,  was  deposed  from  the 
presidency  of  Harvard  College;  and  as  our  glance  at  the 
Mathers  must  have  reminded  us,   an  eminent  Yankee 
minister  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  almost  as  neces 
sarily  a  politician  as  he  was  a  divine.     Yet  Edwards,  the 
most  eminent  of  our  eighteenth- 
century  ministers,  had  less  to  do 
with  public  affairs  than  many  min 
isters  of  the  present  day.     A  more 
thorough  separation  of  Church  and 
State  than  is  indicated  by  his  ca 
reer  could  hardly  exist. 

Nothing  less  than  such  separa 
tion  from  public  affairs  could  have 
permitted  that  concentration  on 
matters  of  the  other  world  which 
makes  the  work  of  Edwards  still 

P°tent        Fr°m    his    OWn    time    t0 

ours  his  influence  has  been  so 
strong  that  to  this  day  discussions  of  him  are  generally 
concerned  with  the  question  of  how  far  his  systematic 
theology  is  true.  For  our  purposes  this  question  is  not 
material,  nor  yet  is  that  of  what  his  system  was  in  detail. 
It  is  enough  to  observe  that  throughout  his  career,  as 
His  preacher  and  writer  alike,  he  set  forth  Calvinism  in  its 

promising     m°st  uncompromising  form,  reasoned  out  with  great  logi- 
Caivinism.    caj    power    to  extreme   conclusions.     As   for  matters  of 
earthly  fact,  he  mentioned  them  only  as  they  bore  on  his 
theological  or  philosophical  contentions. 

Early  in  life,  for  example,  he  fell  in  love  witfy  Sarah 


Jonathan  Edwards  79 


Pierrepont,  daughter  of  a  New  Haven  minister,  and  a  Sarah 

Pierre 
pont. 


descendant  of  the  great  emigrant  minister  Thomas  Hooker, 


of  Hartford.  Accordingly  this  lady  presented  herself  to 
his  mind  as  surely  among  God's  chosen,  an  opinion  which 
he  recorded  when  she  was  thirteen  years  old  and  he  was 
twenty,  in  the  following  words : — 

"They  say  there  is  a  young  lady  in  New  Haven  who  is  beloved  of 
that  great  Being  who  made  and  rules  the  world,  and  that  there  are 
certain  seasons  in  which  this  great  Being,  in  some  way  or  other  in 
visible,  comes  to  her  and  fills  her  mind  with  exceeding  sweet  delight, 
and  that  she  hardly  cares  for  anything  except  to  meditate  on  Him; 
that  she  expects  after  a  while  to  be  received  up  where  he  is,  to  be 
raised  up  out  of  the  world  and  caught  up  into  heaven;  being  assured 
that  he  loves  her  too  well  to  let  her  remain  at  a  distance  from  Him 
always.  There  she  is  to  dwell  with  Him,  and  to  be  ravished  with  His 
love  and  delight  forever.  Therefore,  if  you  present  all  the  world  be 
fore  her,  with  the  richest  of  its  treasures,  she  disregards  and  cares  not 
for  it,  and  is  unmindful  of  any  pain  or  affliction.  She  has  a  strange 
sweetness  in  her  mind,  and  singular  purity  in  her  affections;  is  most 
just  and  conscientious  in  all  her  conduct;  and  you  could  not  persuade 
her  to  do  anything  wrong  or  sinful,  if  you  would  give  her  the  whole 
world,  lest  she  should  offend  this  great  Being.  She  is  of  a  wonderful 
calmness,  and  universal  benevolence  of  mind;  especially  after  this 
great  God  has  manifested  himself  to  her  mind.  She  will  sometimes 
go  about  from  place  to  place  singing  sweetly;  and  seems  to  be  always 
full  of  joy  and  pleasure,  and  no  one  knows  for  what.  She  loves  to  be 
alone,  walking  in  the  fields  and  groves,  and  seems  to  have  some  one 
invisible  always  conversing  with  her." 

That  little  record  of  Edwards's  innocent  love,  which 
felt  sure  that  its  object  enjoyed  the  blessings  of  God's 
elect,  has  a  tender  beauty.  What  tradition  has  mostly 
remembered  of  him,  however,  is  rather  the  vigor  with 
which  he  set  forth  the  inevitable  fate  of  fallen  man. 

His  most  familiar  work  is  the  sermon  on  Sinners  in  the 


80  The  Eighteenth  Century 

sinners  in   Hands  of  an  Angry  God,  1741,  of  which  one  of  the  least 

the  Hands    f  ,1 

of  an          forgotten  passages  runs  thus: — 

God.'7  "O  sinner!  consider  the  fearful  danger  you  are  in:  it  is  a  great 

furnace  of  wrath,  a  wide  and  bottomless  pit,  full  of  the  fire  of  wrath, 
that  you  are  held  over  in  the  hand  of  that  God,  whose  wrath  is  pro 
voked  and  incensed  as  much  against  you,  as  against  many  of  the 
damned  in  hell: — you  hang  by  a  slender  thread,  with  the  flames  of 
divine  wrath  flashing  about  it,  and  ready  every  moment  to  singe  it 
and  burn  it  asunder;  and  you  have  no  interest  in  any  Mediator,  and 
nothing  to  lay  hold  of  to  save  yourself,  nothing  to  keep  off  the  flames 
of  wrath,  nothing  of  your  own,  nothing  that  you  ever  have  done,  noth 
ing  that  you  can  do,  to  induce  God  to  spare  you  one  moment.  .  .  . 
"It  is  everlasting  wrath.  It  would  be  dreadful  to  suffer  this  fierce 
ness  and  wrath  of  Almighty  God  one  moment;  but  you  must  suffer  it 
to  all  eternity:  there  will  be  no  end  to  this  exquisite,  horrible  misery; 
when  you  look  forward  you  shall  see  a  long  forever,  a  boundless  dura 
tion  before  you,  which  will  swallow  up  your  thoughts  and  amaze  your 
soul;  and  you  will  absolutely  despair  of  ever  having  any  deliverance, 
any  end,  any  mitigation,  any  rest  at  all;  you  will  know  certainly  that 
you  must  wear  out  long  ages,  millions  of  millions  of  ages,  in  wrestling 
and  conflicting  with  this  Almighty  merciless  vengeance;  and  then, 
when  you  have  so  done,  when  so  many  ages  have  actually  been  spent 
by  you  in  this  manner,  you  will  know  that  all  is  but  a  point  to  what 
remains. " 

His  This  insistence  on  sin  and  its  penalty  has  impressed 

ine*  people  so  deeply  that  they  have  been  apt  to  hold  it  compre 
hensive  of  Edwards's  theological  system.  Really  this  is 
far  from  the  case.  He  stoutly  defended  the  divine  justice 
of  his  pitiless  doctrine,  to  be  sure,  with  characteristic 
logic : — 

"God  is  a  being  infinitely  lovely,  because  he  hath  infinite  excellency 
and  beauty.  To 'have  infinite  excellency  and  beauty,  is  the  same 
thing  as  to  have  infinite  loveliness.  He  is  a  being  of  infinite  greatness, 
majesty,  and  glory ;  and  therefore  he  is  infinitely  honourable.  He  is  in 
finitely  exalted  above  the  greatest  potentates  of  the  earth,  and  highest 


Jonathan  Edwards  81 

angels  in  heaven;  and  therefore  is  infinitely  more  honourable  than 
they.  His  authority  over  us  is  infinite;  and  the  ground  of  his  right 
to  our  obedience  is  infinitely  strong;  for  he  is  infinitely  worthy  to  be 
obeyed  in  himself,  and  we  have  an  absolute,  universal,  and  infinite 
dependence  upon  him. 

"So  that  sin  against  God,  being  a  violation  of  infinite  obligations, 
must  be  a  crime  infinitely  heinous,  and  so  deserving  of  infinite  pun 
ishment.  " 

Yet  in  spite  of  all  this,  he  held,  God  now  and  again,  in 
His  mercy,  is  pleased  to  receive  certain  human  beings 
into  the  fellowship  of  the  saints,  there  to  enjoy  forever 
such  peace  as  he  thus  describes : — 

"The  peace  of  the  Christian  infinitely  differs  from  that  of  the 
worldling,  in  that  it  is  unfailing  and  eternal  peace.  That  peace  which 
carnal  men  have  in  the  things  of  this  world  is,  according  to  the  foun 
dation  it  is  built  upon,  of  short  continuance;  like  the  comfort  of  a 
dream,  I  John  ii,  17, 1  Cor.  vii,  31.  These  things,  the  best  and  most 
durable  of  them,  are  like  bubbles  on  the  face  of  the  water;  they 
vanish  in  a  moment,  Hos.  x,  7. 

"But  the  foundation  of  the  Christian's  peace  is  everlasting;  it  is 
what  no  time,  no  change,  can  destroy.  It  will  remain  when  the  body 
dies;  it  will  remain  when  the  mountains  depart  and  the  hills  shall  be 
removed,  and  when  the  heavens  shall  be  rolled  together  as  a  scroll. 
The  fountain  of  his  comfort  shall  never  be  diminished,  and  the  stream 
shall  never  be  dried.  His  comfort  and  joy  is  a  living  spring  in  the 
soul,  a  well  of  water  springing  up  to  everlasting  life. " 

In  plain  truth,  what  people  commonly  remember  of  Edwards 
Edwards  is  merely  one  extreme  to  which  he  reasoned  out  prJedom 
his  consistent  system.     Like  the  older  theology  of  Calvin  of  the  win. 
it  all  rests  on  the  essential  wickedness  of  the  human  will, 
concerning  which  Edwards's  great  treatise  on  the  Freedom 
of  the  Will,  1754,  is  still  significant.     He  asserts  something 
like  an  utter  fatalism,  a  universality  of  cause  affecting  even 
our  volition,  quite  beyond  human  control.    This  fatal 


82  The  Eighteenth  Century 

perversion  of  human  will  he  believes  to  spring  from  that 
ancestral  curse  which  forbids  any  child  of  Adam  to  exert 
the  will  in  true  harmony  with  the  will  of  God.  Reconcili 
ation  he  holds  possible  only  when  divine  power  comes, 
with  unmerited  grace,  to  God's  elect. 

Edwards's  premises  lead  pretty  straight  to  his  conclu 
sions.  Yet  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  neither  seem 
quite  convincing  to  most  modern  minds.  One  can  see 
Summary,  why.  In  his  American  world,  so  relieved  from  the  pressure 
of  external  fact  that  people  generally  behaved  much  better 
than  is  usual  in  earthly  history,  Edwards,  whose  personal 
life  was  exceptionally  removed  from  anything  practical, 
reasoned  out  with  unflinching  logic,  to  extreme  conclu 
sions,  a  kind  of  philosophy  which  is  justified  in  experience 
only  by  such  things  as  occur  in  densely  populated,  corrupt 
societies.  He  tried  logically  to  extend  Calvinism  in  a 
world  where  there  were  few  more  dreadful  exhibitions  of 
human  depravity  than  occasional  cheating,  the  reading  of 
eighteenth- century  novels,  and  such  artless  merry 
makings  as  have  always  gladdened  youth  in  the  Yankee 
country.  Whoever  knew  American  life  in  the  middle  of 
the  eighteenth  century  and  honestly  asked  himself  whether 
its  manifestations  were  such  as  the  theology  of  Edwards 
would  explain,  could  hardly  avoid  a  deeper  and  deeper 
conviction  that,  even  though  he  was  unable  to  find  a  flaw 
in  Edwards's  system,  the  whole  thing  was  hardly  in  ac 
cordance  with  fact. 


VI 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Works,  10  vols.,  ed.  Jared  Sparks,  Boston:  Milliard,  Gray  & 
Co.,  1836-50;  *Works,  10  vols.,  ed.  John  Bigelow,  New  York:  Putnam, 
1887-8;  *  Autobiography,  3  vols.,  ed.  Bigelow,  Philadelphia:  Lippincott, 

i875- 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  J.  T.  Morse,  Jr.,  Benjamin  Franklin, 
Boston:  Houghton,  1889  (AS);  *J.  B.  McMaster,  Benjamin  Franklin, 
Boston,  Houghton,  1887  (AML);  P.  L.  Ford,  The  Many-Sided  Franklin, 
New  York:  Century  Co.,  1899. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  P.  L.  Ford,  Franklin  Bibliography,  Brooklyn,  1889. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  31-47;  Duyckinck,  I,  110-115;  Griswold, 
Prose,  63-70;  *Hart,  Contemporaries,  II,  Nos.  68,  81,  94,  133,  143,  199, 
217,  and  III,  No.  12;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  III,  3-49. 

THE  contemporary  of  Edwards  who  best  shows  what 
American  human  nature  had  become,  is  BENJAMIN 
FRANKLIN  (1706-1790).  Unlike  the  persons  at  whom  we 
have  glanced,  this  man,  who  became  more  eminent  than  all 
the  rest  together,  sprang  from  inconspicuous  origin.  The 
son  of  a  tallow  chandler,  he  was  born  in  Boston,  on  Jan 
uary  6,  1706.  As  a  mere  boy,  he  was  apprenticed  to  his 
brother,  a  printer,  with  whom  he  did  not  get  along  very 
well.  At  seventeen  he  ran  away,  and  finally  turned  up  in  Life. 
Philadelphia,  where  he  attracted  the  interest  of  some  in 
fluential  people.  A  year  later  he  went  to  England,  carry 
ing  from  these  friends  letters  which  he  supposed  might 
be  useful  in  the  mother  country.  The  letters  proved 
worthless;  in  1726,  after  a  rather  vagabond  life  in  Eng- 

83 


84 


The  Eighteenth  Century 


Poor 

Richard's 

Almanac. 


land,  he  returned  to  Philadelphia.  There  he  remained 
for  some  thirty  years.  He  began  by  shrewdly  advancing 
himself  as  printer,  publisher,  and  shopkeeper ;  later,  when 
his  extraordinary  ability  had  drawn  about  him  people  of 
more  and  more  solid  character,  he  became  a  local  public 
man  and  proved  himself  also  an  admirable  self-taught 
man  of  science.  In  1732,  the  year  of  Washington's  birth, 

he  started  that  Poor  Richard's 
Almanac  whose  aphorisms 
have  remained  so  popular.  It 
is  Poor  Richard  who  tells  us, 
among  other  things,  that 
"Early  to  bed  and  early  to 
rise,  makes  a  man  healthy, 
wealthy,  and  wise;"  that  "God 
helps  them  that  help  them 
selves;"  and  that  "Honesty  is 
the  best  policy."  After  fifteen 
years  Franklin's  affairs  had 
so  prospered  that  he  could 
retire  from  shopkeeping  and 
give  himself  over  to  scientific  work.  He  made  numerous 
inventions:  the  lightning-rod,  for  example;  the  stove  still 
called  by  his  name;  and  double  spectacles,  with  one  lens 
in  the  upper  half  for  observing  distant  objects,  and  another 
in  the  lower  half  for  reading.  In  1755  he  was  made  Post 
master-General  of  the  American  colonies;  and  the  United 
States  post-office  is  said  still  to  be  conducted  in  many 
respects  on  the  system  he  then  established.  So  he  lived 
until  1757,  the  year  before  Jonathan  Edwards  died. 

In  1757  he  was  sent  to  England  as  the  Agent  of  Pennsyl 
vania.     There  he  remained,  with  slight  intervals,  for  eigh- 


Benjamin  Franklin  85 

teen  years,  becoming  agent  of  other  colonies  too.  In  1775 
he  returned  home,  where  in  1776  he  was  a  signer  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Before  the  end  of  that 
year  he  was  despatched  as  minister  to  France,  where  he 
remained  until  1 785.  Then  he  came  home  and  was  elected 
President  of  Pennsylvania.  In  1787  he  was  among  the 
signers  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  On  the 
1 7th  of  April,  1790,  he  died  at  Philadelphia,  a  city  to  which 
his  influence  had  given  not  only  the  best  municipal  system 
of  eighteenth-century  America,  but  also,  among  other  in 
stitutions  which  have  survived,  the  American  Philosophical 
Society  and  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

The  Franklin  of  world  tradition,  the  great  Franklin,  is 
the  statesman  and  diplomatist  who  from  1757  until  1785 
proved  himself  both  in  England  and  in  France  to  possess 
such  remarkable  power.  But  the  Franklin  with  whom 
we  are  concerned  is  rather  the  shrewd  native  American  Deveiop- 
whose  first  fifty  years  were  spent  in  preparation  for  his  character, 
world- wide  career.  The  effect  of  his  inconspicuous  origin 
appeared  in  several  ways.  For  one  thing  he  had  small 
love  for  anything  in  Massachusetts;  for  another,  he  in 
stinctively  emigrated  to  a  region  where  he  should  not  be 
hampered  by  troublesome  family  traditions;  for  a  third, 
he  consorted  during  his  earlier  life  with  men  who  though 
often  clever  were  loose  in  morals.  Before  middle  life, 
however,  his  vagabond  period  was  at  an  end.  By  strict 
attention  to  business  and  imperturbable  good  sense,  he 
steadily  bettered  his  condition.  By  the  time  he  was  fifty 
years  old  his  studies  in  electricity  had  gained  him  Euro 
pean  reputation;  and  in  all  the  American  colonies  there 
was  no  practical  public  man  of  more  deserved  local  im 
portance. 


86  The  Eighteenth  Century 

In  the  course  of  these  years  he  had  written  and  published 
copiously.  None  of  his  work,  however,  can  be  called 
exactly  literary.  Its  purpose  was  either  to  instruct  people 
concerning  his  scientific  and  other  discoveries  and  prin 
ciples;  or  else,  as  in  Poor  Richard's  Almanac, — perhaps 
his  nearest  approach  to  pure  letters, — to  influence  conduct. 
But  if  Franklin's  writings  were  never  precisely  literature, 
his  style  was  generally  admirable.  His  account  in  the 
Autobiography  of  how,  while  still  a  Boston  boy,  he  learned 
to  write,  is  at  once  characteristic  of  his  temper  and  con 
clusive  of  his  accomplishment: — 

"About  this  time  I  met  with  an  odd  volume  of  the  'Spectator.'" 
It  was  the  third.  I  had  never  before  seen  any  of  them.  I  bought  it, 
read  it  over  and  over,  and  was  much  delighted  with  it.  I  thought 
the  writing  excellent,  and  wished,  if  possible,  to  imitate  it.  With  this 
view  I  took  some  of  the  papers,  and,  making  short  hints  of  the  senti 
ment  in  each  sentence,  laid  them  by  a  few  days,  and  then,  without 
looking  at  the  book,  try'd  to  compleat  the  papers  again,  by  expressing 
each  hinted  sentiment  at  length,  and  as  fully  as  it  had  been  expressed 
before,  in  any  suitable  words  that  should  come  to  hand.  Then  I 
compared  my  '  Spectator  '  with  the  original,  discovered  some  of  my 
faults,  and  corrected  them.  But  I  found  I  wanted  a  stock  of  words, 
or  a  readiness  in  recollecting  and  using  them,  which  I  thought  I 
should  have  acquired  before  that  time  if  I  had  gone  on  making 
verses ;  since  the  continual  occasion  for  words  of  the  same  import, 
but  of  different  length,  to  suit  the  measure,  or  of  different  sound  for 
the  rhyme,  would  have  laid  me  under  a  constant  necessity  of  search 
ing  for  variety,  and  also  have  tended  to  fix  that  variety  in  my  mind, 
and  make  me  master  of  it.  Therefore  I  took  some  of  the  tales  and 
turned  them  into  verse  ;  and,  after  a  time,  when  I  had  pretty  well  for 
gotten  the  prose,  turned  them  back  again.  I  also  sometimes  jumbled 
my  collection  of  hints  into  confusion,  and  after  some  weeks  endeav 
oured  to  reduce  them  into  the  best  order,  before  I  began  to  form  the 
full  sentences  and  compleat  the  paper.  This  was  to  teach  me  method 
in  the  arrangement  of  thoughts.  My  time  for  these  exercises  and  for 


Benjamin  Franklin  87 

reading  was  at  night,  after  work  or  before  it  began  in  the  morning,  or 
on  Sundays,  when  I  contrived  to  be  in  the  printing-house  alone,  evad 
ing  as  much  as  I  could  the  common  attendance  on  public  worship) 
which  my  father  used  to  exact  of  me  when  I  was  under  his  care,  and 
which  indeed  I  still  thought  a  duty,  though  I  could  not,  as  it  seemed 
to  me,  afford  time  to  practise  it. " 

Sound  eighteenth-century  English  this,  though  hardly  Feeling 
equal  to  its  model.  Even  more  characteristic  than  the  rel°gion. 
English  of  this  passage,  however,  is  Franklin's  feeling 
about  religion,  implied  in  its  last  sentence.  The  Boston 
where  this  printer's  boy  stayed  away  from  church  to  teach 
himself  how  to  write  was  the  very  town  where  Increase 
and  Cotton  Mather  were  still  preaching  the  dogmas  of 
Puritan  theocracy;  and  a  few  days'  journey  westward 
Jonathan  Edwards,  only  three  years  older  than  Franklin, 
was  beginning  his  lifelong  study  of  the  relation  of  man 
kind  to  eternity.  To  the  religious  mind  of  New  England, 
earthly  life  remained  a  mere  fleeting  moment.  Life  must 
always  end  soon,  and  death  as  we  see  it  actually  seems 
unending.  With  this  solemn  truth  constantly  in  mind, 
the  New  England  Puritans  of  Franklin's  day,  like  their 
devout  ancestors,  and  many  of  their  devout  descendants, 
bent  their  whole  energy  toward  eternal  welfare  as  dis 
tinguished  from  anything  temporal.  Yet  in  their  prin 
cipal  town  Franklin,  a  man  of  the  plain  people,  exposed 
to  no  influences  but  those  of  his  own  day  and  country, 
was  coolly  preferring  the  study  of  earthly  accomplishment 
to  any  question  which  concerned  matters  beyond  human 
life. 

Another  extract  from  his  Autobiography  carries  his  re 
ligious  history  a  little  further: — 

"My  parents  had  early  given  me  religious  impressions,  and  brought 
me  through  my  childhood  piously  in  the  Dissenting  way.    But  I  was 


88  The  Eighteenth  Century 

scarce  fifteen,  when,  after  doubting  by  turns  of  several  points,  as  I 
found  them  disputed  in  the  different  books  I  read,  I  began  to  doubt  of 
Revelation  itself.  Some  books  against  Deism  fell  into  my  hands; 
they  were  said  to  be  the  substance  of  sermons  preached  at  Boyle's 
Lectures.  It  happened  that  they  wrought  an  effect  on  me  quite  con 
trary  to  what  was  intended  by  them;  for  the  arguments  of  the  deists, 
which  were  quoted  to  be  refuted,  appeared  to  me  much  stronger  than 
the  refutations;  in  short,  I  soon  became  a  thorough  Deist.  My  argu 
ments  perverted  some  others,  particularly  Collins  and  Ralph;  but, 
each  of  them  having  afterward  wrong'd  me  greatly  without  the  least 
compunction,  and  recollecting  Keith's  conduct  towards  me  (who  was 
another  free-thinker),  and  my  own  towards  Vernon  and  Miss  Read, 
which  at  times  gave  me  great  trouble,  I  began  to  suspect  that  this 
doctrine,  tho'  it  might  be  true,  was  not  very  useful." 

"Not  very  useful:"  the  good  sense  of  Franklin  tested 
religion  itself  by  its  effects  on  every-day  conduct. 

The  cool  scientific  temper  with  which  he  observed  one 
of  Whitefield's  impassioned  public  discourses  is  equally 
characteristic : — 

"He  preach'd  one  evening  from  the  top  of  the  Court-house  steps, 
which  are  in  the  middle  of  Market-street,  and  on  the  west  side  of 
Second-street,  which  crosses  it  at  right  angles.  Both  streets  were 
filled  with  hearers  to  a  considerable  distance.  Being  among  the  hind 
most  in  Market-street,  I  had  the  curiosity  to  learn  how  far  he  could 
be  heard  by  retiring  backwards  down  the  street  towards  the  river ; 
and  I  found  that  his  voice  was  distinct  till  I  came  near  Front-street, 
when  some  noise  in  that  street  obscur'd  it.  Imagining  then  a  semi 
circle,  of  which  my  distance  should  be  the  radius,  and  that  it  were 
filled  with  auditors,  to  each  of  whom  I  allowed  two  square  feet,  I 
computed  that  he  might  well  be  heard  by  more  than  thirty  thousand. 
This  reconcil'd  me  to  the  newspaper  accounts  of  his  having  preached 
to  twenty-five  thousand  people  in  the  fields,  and  to  ancient  histories 
of  generals  haranguing  whole  armies,  of  which  I  had  sometimes 
doubted." 

To  Franklin,  in  brief,  things  on  earth  were  of  paramount 
importance.  He  never  denied  the  existence  of  God,  but 


Benjamin  Franklin  89 

he  deemed  God  a  beneficent  spirit,  to  whom  men,  if  they 
behave  decently,  may  confidently  leave  the  affairs  of  an 
other  world.  Of  earthly  morality,  meanwhile,  so  far  as 
it  commended  itself  to  good  sense,  Franklin  was  shrewdly 
careful.  No  passage  in  his  Autobiography  (1771,  1781,  Rules  of 
1788)  is  more  familiar  than  the  list  of  virtues  which  he 
drew  up  and  endeavored  in  turn  to  practise.  The  order 
in  which  he  chose  to  arrange  them  is  as  follows:  Tem 
perance,  Silence,  Order,  Resolution,  Frugality  (under 
which  his  little  expository  motto  is  very  characteristic: 
"Make  no  expense  but  to  do  good  to  others  or  yourself"), 
Industry,  Sincerity  (under  which  he  directs  us  to  "Use 
no  hurtful  deceit"),  Justice,  Moderation,  Cleanliness, 
Tranquillity,  Chastity,  and  finally  one  which  he  added 
later  as  peculiarly  needful  to  him, — Humility. 

The  deliberate  good  sense  with  which  Franklin  treated 
matters  of  religion  and  morality,  he  displayed  equally  in 
his  scientific  writings;  and,  a  little  later,  in  the  public 
documents  and  correspondence  which  made  him  as  emi 
nent  in  diplomacy  and  statecraft  as  he  had  earlier  been  in 
science  and  in  local  affairs.  His  examination  before  the 
House  of  Commons  in  1 766  shows  him  as  a  public  man  at 
his  best. 

A  letter  to  a  London  newspaper,  written  the  year  be 
fore,  shows  another  phase  of  his  mind,  less  frequently 
remembered.  It  is  a  bantering  comment  on  ignorant  arti 
cles  concerning  the  American  colonies  which  appeared 
at  about  this  time  in  the  daily  prints : — 

"I  beg  leave  to  say,  that  all  the  articles  of  news  that  seem  improb-   Humor, 
able  are  not  mere  inventions.     The  very  tails  of  the  American  sheep 
are  so  laden  with  wool,  that  each  has  a  little  car  or  wagon  on  four  little 
wheels,  to  support  and  keep  it  from  trailing  on  the  ground.     Would 


90  The  Eighteenth  Century 

they  caulk  their  ships,  would  they  even  litter  their  horses  with  wool, 
if  it  were  not  both  plenty  and  cheap?  And  what  signifies  the  dear- 
ness  of  labor  when  an  English  shilling  passes  for  five-and-twenty  ? 
Their  engaging  three  hundred  silk  throwsters  here  in  one  week  for 
New  York  was  treated  as  a  fable,  because,  forsooth,  they  have  '  no 
silk  there  to  throw. '  Those,  who  make  this  objection,  perhaps  do  not 
know,  that,  at  the  same  time  the  agents  from  the  King  of  Spain  were 
at  Quebec  to  contract  for  one  thousand  pieces  of  cannon  to  be  made 
there  for  the  fortification  of  Mexico,  and  at  New  York  engaging  the 
usual  supply  of  woollen  floor  carpets  for  their  West  India  houses, 
other  agents  from  the  Emperor  of  China  were  at  Boston  treating 
about  an  exchange  of  raw  silk  for  wool,  to  be  carried  in  Chinese  junks 
through  the  Straits  of  Magellan. 

"And  yet  all  this  is  as  certainly  true,  as  the  account  said  to  be 
from  Quebec,  in  all  the  papers  of  last  week,  that  the  inhabitants  of 
Canada  are  making  preparations  for  a  cod  and  whale  fishery  'this 
summer  in  the  upper  Lakes.'  Ignorant  people  may  object,  that  the 
upper  Lakes  are  fresh,  and  that  cod  and  whales  are  salt-water  fish;  but 
let  them  know,  Sir,  that  cod,  like  other  fish  when  attacked  by  their 
enemies,  fly  into  any  water  where  they  can  be  safest;  that  whales, 
when  they  have  a  mind  to  eat  cod,  pursue  them  wherever  they  fly; 
and  that  the  grand  leap  of  the  whale  in  the  chase  up  the  Falls  of 
Niagara  is  esteemed,  by  all  who  have  seen  it,  as  one  of  the  finest 
spectacles  in  nature." 

This  passage  is  noteworthy  as  an  early  instance  of  what 
we  now  call  American  humor, — the  grave  statement,  with 
a  sober  face,  of  obviously  preposterous  nonsense.  Though 
its  style  is  almost  Addisonian,  its  substance  is  more  like 
what  in  our  own  days  has  given  world- wide  popularity  to 
Mark  Twain. 

Summary.  The  character  of  Franklin  is  too  considerable  for  ade 
quate  treatment  in  any  such  space  as  ours;  but  perhaps 
we  have  seen  enough  to  understand  how  human  nature 
tended  to  develop  in  eighteenth-century  America,  where 
for  a  time  economic  and  social  pressure  was  so  relaxed. 


Benjamin  Franklin  91 

Devoting  himself  with  unceasing  energy,  common-sense, 
and  tact  to  practical  matters,  and  never  seriously  con 
cerning  himself  with  eternity,  Franklin  developed  into  a 
living  example  of  such  rational,  kindly  humanity  as  the 
philosophy  of  revolutionary  France  held  attainable  by 
whoever  should  be  freed  from  the  distorting  influence 
of  accidental  and  outworn  institutions.  In  Jonathan 
Edwards  we  found  theoretical  Puritanism  proclaiming 
more  uncompromisingly  than  ever  that  human  nature  is 
totally  depraved.  At  that  very  time  Franklin,  by  living 
as  well  and  as  sensibly  as  he  could,  was  getting  himself 
ready  to  face  the  eternities,  feeling,  as  he  wrote  to  Pres 
ident  Stiles,  that  "having  experienced  the  goodness  of 
that  Being  in  conducting  me  prosperously  through  a  long 
life,  I  have  no  doubt  of  its  continuance  in  the  next,  though 
without  the  smallest  conceit  of  meriting  such  goodness." 
The  America  which  in  the  same  years  bred  Jonathan 
Edwards  and  Benjamin  Franklin  bred  too  the  American 
Revolution. 


VII 

THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION 

REFERENCES 
(a)  HISTORY 

GOOD  SHORT  ACCOUNTS:  Charming,  Student's  History,  Chapters  iv 
and  v.  Note  the  bibliographical  references  at  the  beginning  of  each 
chapter,  and  especially  the  lists  of  "  Illustrative  Material. " 

Hart,  Formation  of  the  Union,  Chapters  i,  iii,  iv.  Bibliographical  lists 
at  the  beginning  of  each  chapter. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Channing  and  Hart,  Guide,  §§  56a,  56b,  133-136; 
Justin  Winsor,  The  Reader's  Handbook  of  the  American  Revolution  (1761- 
1783),  Boston:  Houghton,  1880;  Winsor's  America,  Vols.  VI  and  VII. 
Vol.  VIII  (p.  469  ff.)  contains  a  very  full  list  of  "Printed  Authorities  on 
the  History  of  the  United  States,  1775-1850." 

(6)    LITERATURE 

LITERARY  HISTORY:  The  great  book  on  the  literature  of  the  Revolu 
tionary  period  is  M.  C.  Tyler's  Literary  History  of  the  American  Revolu 
tion,  2  vols.,  New  York:  Putnam,  1897.  Whoever  cannot  read  all  of 
Tyler  may  well  select  Chapters  i,  x  §  vi,  xiii,  xv,  xxi,  xxv,  xxvi,  xxix. 

SELECTIONS:  Hart,  Contemporaries,  II,  Parts  vi-viii,  especially  Nos. 
131,  149,  167,  196;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  Vol.  Ill,  especially  pp. 
91-98, 113-116,  175-180,  186-205,  218-219,  230-251,  338-3^1. 

The  Revo-  THE  war  which  began  at  Lexington  and  ended  six 
civiTwar  years  later  with  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown 
has  too  often  been  considered  a  rising  against  a  foreign 
invader.  No  error  could  be  much  graver.  Up  to  1760 
the  colonies  of  America  were  on  the  whole  loyal  to  the 
crown  of  England.  England,  of  course,  was  separated 
from  America  by  the  Atlantic  Ocean;  and,  so  far  as  time 
goes,  the  North  Atlantic  of  the  eighteenth  century  was 
wider  than  the  equatorial  Pacific  is  to-day.  But  the  peo- 

92 


The  American  Revolution  93 

pie  of  the  American  colonies  were  as  truly  compatriots  of 
Englishmen  as  the  citizens  of  our  Southern  States  in  1860 
were  compatriots  of  New  England  Yankees.  The  Revo 
lution,  in  short,  was  a  civil  war,  like  the  wars  of  Cavaliers 
and  Roundheads  a  century  before  in  England,  or  the 
war  in  our  own  country  between  1861  and  1865.  And 
like  most  civil  wars  it  was  partly  due  to  honest  misunder 
standing.  The  two  sides  used  the  same  terms  in  dispute, 
but  they  applied  them  to  widely  different  things. 

Take,  for  example,  one  of  the  best-remembered  phrases  England 
of  the  period, — "No  taxation  without  representation."  coh>nUs 
What  does  this  really  mean?  To  the  American  mind  of  misunder- 
to-day,  as  to  the  mind  of  the  revolutionary  leaders  in  King  other. 
George's  colonies,  it  means  that  no  town  or  city  or  other 
group  of  men  should  be  taxed  by  a  legislative  body  to 
which  it  has  not  actually  elected  representatives,  gen 
erally  resident  within  its  limits.  To  the  English  mind  of 
1770,  on  the  other  hand,  it  simply  meant  that  no  British 
subject  should  be  taxed  by  a  body  where  there  was  not 
somebody  to  represent  his  case.  This  view,  the  traditional 
one  of  the  English  Common  Law,  was  held  by  the  Loyalists 
of  America.  When  the  revolutionists  complained  that 
America  elected  no  representatives  to  Parliament,  the 
loyalists  answered  that  neither  did  many  of  the  most  popu 
lous  towns  in  the  mother  country;  and  that  the  interests 
of  those  towns  were  perfectly  well  cared  for  by  members 
elected  elsewhere.  If  anybody  inquired  what  members 
of  Parliament  were  protecting  the  interests  of  the  American 
colonies,  the  loyalists  would  have  named  the  elder  Pitt, 
Fox,  and  Burke,  and  would  have  asked  whether  New 
England  or  Virginia  could  have  exported  to  Parliament 
representatives  in  any  respect  superior. 


94  The  Eighteenth  Century 

So  it  was  in  regard  to  other  important  questions  of  gov 
ernment:  Englishmen  and  Americans  in  1775  were  hon 
estly  unable  to  understand  one  another.  The  reason  for 
this  disagreement  was  that  by  1775  the  course  of  Ameri 
can  history  had  made  our  conception  of  legal  rights  dif 
ferent  from  that  of  the  English. 

We  had  developed  local  traditions  of  our  own,  which 
we  believed  as  immemorial  as  ever  were  the  local  tradi 
tions  of  the  mother  country.  The  question  of  represen 
tation,  for  example,  was  not  abstract ;  it  was  one  of  estab 
lished  constitutional  practice,  which  had  taken  one  form 
in  England  and  another  very  different  form  in  America. 
So  when  discussion  arose,  Englishmen  meant  one  thing 
by  "representation"  and  Americans  meant  something  else. 
Misunderstanding  followed,  a  family  quarrel,  a  civil  war, 
and  world  disunion.  Beneath  this  world  disunion,  all  the 
while,  is  a  deeper  fact,  binding  America  and  England 
truly  together  at  heart, — each  really  believed  itself  to  be  as 
serting  the  rights  which  immemorial  custom  had  sanc 
tioned. 

TheRea-  We  can  now  perhaps  begin  to  see  what  the  American 
thUMis-  Revolution  means.  By  1775,  the  national  experience 
under-  which  had  been  accumulating  in  England  from  the  days 
of  Queen  Elizabeth  had  brought  the  temper  of  the  native 
English  to  a  state  very  remote  from  what  this  native  tem 
per  had  been  under  the  Tudor  sovereigns.  Meanwhile, 
the  lack  of  economic  pressure  to  which  we  have  given  the 
name  of  national  inexperience  had  kept  the  original  Ameri 
can  temper  singularly  unaltered.  When  at  last,  on  the 
accession  of  George  III,  legal  and  constitutional  questions 
were  presented  in  the  same  terms  to  English-speaking 
temperaments  on  different  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  these  tem- 


The  American  Revolution  95 

peraments  had  been  forced  so  far  apart  that  neither  could 
appreciate  what  each  other  meant.  So  neither  would  have 
been  true  to  the  deepest  traditions  of  their  common  race, 
had  anything  less  than  the  Revolution  resulted. 

This  deep  national  misunderstanding  naturally  gave  Nine  sorts 
rise  to  a  great  deal  of  publication.  Most  of  this  was  °utioenva°ry 
controversial,  and  of  no  more  than  passing  interest.  Yet  Literature, 
no  consideration  of  literature  in  America  can  quite  neglect 
it.  Professor  Tyler,  who  has  studied  this  subject  more 
thoroughly  than  anyone  else — and  who  uses  the  term 
"literature"  so  generously  as  to  include  within  it  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence,  divides  the  literature  of  the 
Revolution  into  nine  classes:*  correspondence,  state 
papers,  oral  addresses,  political  essays,  political  satires  in 
verse,  lyric  poetry,  minor  literary  facetiae,  drama,  and 
prose  narratives  of  experience.  Most  of  this  publication 
we  may  put  aside  once  for  all;  it  is  only  material  for 
history.  But  we  may  wisely  glance  at  a  few  of  the  better 
written  works  such  as  the  political  essays  of  James  Otis, 
John  Dickinson,  and  Francis  Hopkinson,  on  the  one 
side;  and  those  of  Samuel  Seabury,  and  the  satires  in 
verse  of  Jonathan  Odell,  on  the  other. 

JAMES  OTIS  (1725-1783),  of  Massachusetts,  whose  otia. 
famous  speech  in  1761  against  "writs  of  assistance"  was 
based  rather  upon  precedent  than  upon  abstract  rights, 
published  in  1764  a  pamphlet  called  The  Rights  0}  the 
Colonies  Asserted  and  Proved.  In  this  essay  Otis  declared 
that  "by  the  law  of  God  and  nature"  the  colonists  were 
entitled  to  all  the  rights  of  their  fellow-subjects  in  Great 
Britain.  Again,  in  1765,  Otis's  famous  Considerations 

*  M.C.Tyler,  The  Literary  History  of  the  American  Revolution,  I, 
9-29. 


96  The  Eighteenth  Century 

on  Behalf  of  the  Colonies,  in  a  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord, 
attacked  the  English  idea  of  virtual  representation  and 
declared  that  the  mother  country  should  keep  the  colo 
nies  by  nourishing  them  as  the  apple  of  her  eye.  Otis's 
writings  show  the  temper  of  an  advocate,  trained  in  the 
English  law,  but  so  eagerly  interested  in  his  cause  as  to 
be  less  and  less  careful  about  precedent. 

JOHN  DICKINSON  (1732-1808),  of  Philadelphia,  is  best 
known  by  his  Letters  from  a  Farmer  in  Pennsylvania  to 
the  Inhabitants  of  the  British  Colonies  (1767).  They  are 
said  to  have  gone  through  thirty  editions  in  six  months. 
The  main  object  of  these  pamphlets,  which  were  among 
the  most  influential  of  the  period,  was,  in  Dickinson's  own 
words,  "to  convince  the  people  of  these  colonies  that 
they  are,  at  this  moment,  exposed  to  the  most  imminent 
dangers;  and  to  persuade  them,  immediately,  vigorously, 
and  unanimously,  to  exert  themselves,  in  the  most  firm 
but  most  peaceable  manner,  for  obtaining  relief." 

FRANCIS  HOPKINSON  (1737-1791),  also  of  Philadelphia, 
was  perhaps  the  most  distinctly  American  writer  of  all. 
He  had  been  in  England  between  1766  and  1768.  He 
was  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  he 
died  a  United  States  District  Judge.  His  only  popular 
work  is  a  poem — the  Battle  of  the  Kegs  (1778) — which 
ridiculed  the  British  army  when  it  occupied  Philadelphia. 
But  some  of  his  prose  writings  during  the  Revolutionary 
period  show  that  he  felt,  as  distinctly  as  people  feel  to 
day,  how  widely  the  national  temperaments  of  England 
and  of  America  had  diverged. 

Among  the  Loyalist  writers  who  opposed  the  doctrines 
of  such  men  as  the  foregoing,  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
was  SAMUEL  SEABURY  (1729-1796),  of  Connecticut,  later 


The  American  Revolution  97 

the  first  bishop  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in 
the  United  States.  Under  the  name  of  a  "  Westchester 
Farmer,"  he  wrote  a  brilliant  series  of  pamphlets  (1774- 
1775),  which  shrewdly  pointed  out  the  misfortunes  which 
must  ensue  from  some  of  the  acts  of  the  first  Continental 
Congress. 

Nearer  to  pure  literature,  was  the  work  of  the  Rev.  odeii. 
JONATHAN  ODELL  (1737-1818),  of  New  Jersey,  whose 
satires  in  verse,  The  Word  o)  Congress,  The  Congratula 
tion,  The  Feu  de  Joie,  and  The  American  Times,  all  pub 
lished  in  1779-1780,  ridiculed  the  Revolutionists  in  the 
manner  of  the  English  satirist  Charles  Churchill  (1731- 
1764). 

This  eager  controversial  writing  of  the  Revolution  is  of 
great  historical  interest.  Professor  Tyler  sets  it  forth 
with  a  minuteness  and  impartiality  which  give  his  volumes 
on  the  period  a  value  almost  equal  to  that  of  the  innu 
merable  documents  on  which  they  are  based.  In  a  study 
like  ours,  which  is  chiefly  concerned  with  pure  literature, 
however,  little  of  this  work  seems  positively  memorable. 
Decidedly  more  memorable  we  shall  find  the  American 
writings  of  the  years  which  followed. 


VIII 

LITERATURE  IN  AMERICA  FROM  1776  TO  1800 

REFERENCES 
THE  FEDERALIST 

WORKS:  *The  Federalist,  ed.  P.  L.  Ford,  New  York:  Holt,  1898;  Ham 
ilton's  Works,  ed.  H.  C.  Lodge,  9  vols.,  New  York:  Putnam,  1885; 
Madison  Papers,  3  vols.,  Washington:  Langtree  &  O'Sullivan,  1840; 
Madison's  Letters  and  Other  Writings,  4  vols.,  Philadelphia:  Lippincott, 
1865;  Jay's  Correspondence  and  Public  Papers,  4  vols.,  New  York:  Put 
nam,  1890-93. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  H.  C.  Lodge,  Alexander  Hamilton,  Bos 
ton:  Houghton,  1882  (AS);  *J.  T.  Morse,  Jr.,  The  Life  of  Alexander 
Hamilton,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1876;  *W.  C.  Rives,  Jr., 
History  of  the  Life  and  Times  of  James  Madison,  3  vols.,  Boston:  Little, 
Brown  &  Co.,  1859;  S.  H.  Gay,  James  Madison,  Boston:  Houghton, 
1884  (AS)  ;  William  Jay,  Life  of  John  Jay,  New  York :  J.  &  J.  Harper, 
1833;  *George  Pellew,  John  Jay,  Boston:  Houghton,  1890  (AS);  E.  G. 
Bourne,  Essays  in  Historical  Criticism,  New  York:  Scribner,  1901,  pp. 
113-156. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  *P.  L.  Ford,  Bibliotheca  Hamiltoniana,  New  York, 
1886;  Winsor's  America,  VII,  259-260;  Channing  and  Hart, -Guide,  §  155. 

SELECTIONS:  Griswold,  Prose,  93-95;  Hart,  Contemporaries,  II,  Nos. 
173,  190,  and  III,  Nos.  54,  72,  86;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  III,  432— 
441  and  IV,  110—127. 

HARTFORD   WITS 

WORKS:  None  in  print.  The  Miscellaneous  Works  of  David  Hum 
phreys  were  published  at  New  York  in  1790;  the  Poetical  Works  of  John 
Trumbull,  LL.D.,  in  two  volumes,  appeared  at  Hartford  in  1820. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  C.  B.  Todd,  Life  and  Letters  of  Joel  Bar 
low,  New  York:  Putnam,  1895;  F.  Sheldon,  "The  Pleiades  of  Connecti 
cut,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  XV,  187  ff.  (Feb.,  1865);  *M.  C.  Tyler,  Three 
Men  of  Letters  [Berkeley,  Dwight,  Barlow],  New  York:  Putnam,  1895; 
*Tyler,  Lit.  Hist.  Am.  Rev.,  I,  187-221,  427-450;  J.  H.  Trumbull,  "The 
Origin  of  M'Fingal, "  The  Historical  Magazine,  January,  1868. 

98 


Literature  in  America — 1776  to  1800       99 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Tyler,  Lit.  Hist.  Am.  Rev.,  II,  429  ff;  Tyler,  Three 
Men  of  Letters,  181-185. 

SELECTIONS:  Duyckinck,  I,  312-319,  362-365,  398-403;  Griswold, 
Poetry,  42-47,  49-54,  59-63;  Griswold,  Prose,  82-84;  Hart,  Contempora 
ries,  II,  Nos.  164,  200,  and  III,  No.  153;  Stedman,  9-10;  *Stedman  and 
Hutchinson,  III,  403-415,  422-429,  463-483,  and  IV,  46-57,  89-92, 
167-168. 

FRENEATJ 

WORKS:  The  Poems  of  Philip  Freneau,  ed.  F.  L.  Pattee,  2  vols.,  Prince 
ton,  1902-03. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  Mary  S.  Austin,  Philip  Freneau:  A  History 
of  His  Life  and  Times,  New  York:  A.  Wessels  Co.,  1901;  S.  E.  Forman, 
The  Political  Activities  of  Philip  Freneau,  Baltimore,  1902  (Johns  Hop 
kins  University  Studies,  Series  XX,  Nos.  9-10);  *Tyler,  Lit.  Hist.  Am. 
Rev.,  I,  171-183,  413-425,  and  II,  246-276. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  98-100;  V.  H.  Paltsits,  A  Bibliography  of  the 
Separate  and  Collected  Works  of  Philip  Freneau,  New  York:  Dodd,  Mead 
&  Co.,  1903. 

SELECTIONS:  Duyckinck,  I,  336-348;  Griswold,  Poets,  35-39;  Stedman, 
3-8;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  III,  445-457. 

BETWEEN  the  close  of  the  Revolution  and  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  our  newly  independent  country 
was  adrift;  the  true  course  of  our  national  life  was  slow 
in  declaring  itself.  Until  the  very  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  we  accordingly  remained  without  a  lasting  lit 
erature.  But,  like  the  earlier  period,  that  last  quarter 
of  this  eighteenth  century  produced  a  good  deal  of  pub 
lication  at  which  we  must  glance. 

Our  public  men,  Hamilton,  Samuel  Adams,  Jefferson,  writings  of 
Gouverneur  Morris,   John  Adams,   Madison,  Jay,   and  statesmen 
others,  wrote  admirably.    They  were  earnest  and  thought 
ful  ;  they  had  strong  common  sense ;  they  were  far-sighted 
and  temperate;  and  they  expressed  themselves  with  that 
dignified  urbanity  which  in  their  time  marked  the  English 
of  educated  people.     In  purely  literary  history,  however, 
they  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  much  more  important 


100  The  Eighteenth  Century 

than  Sir  William  Blackstone  (1723-1780)  is  in  the  literary 
history  of  England. 

The  "Fed-  This  kind  of  American  writing  reached  its  acme  in  1787 
and  1788,  when  Hamilton,  Madison,  and  John  Jay  sup 
ported  the  still  unaccepted  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  in  a  remarkable  series  of  political  essays,  named  the 
Federalist.  As  a  series  of  formal  essays,  the  Federalist 
groups  itself  roughly  with  the  Taller,  the  Spectator,  and 
those  numerous  descendants  of  theirs  which  fill  the  literary 
records  of  eighteenth- century  England.  It  differs,  however, 
from  most  of  these,  in  both  substance  and  purpose.  The 
Taller,  the  Spectator,  and  the  best  of  their  successors,  dealt 
with  superficial  matters  in  a  spirit  of  good-natured  reproof: 
the  Federalist  deals,  in  an  argumentative  spirit  as  earnest 
as  that  of  any  Puritan  divine,  with  great  political  prin' 
ciples;  and  it  is  so  wisely  thoughtful  that  one  may  almost 
declare  it  the  permanent  basis  of  sound  thinking  concern 
ing  American  constitutional  law.  Like  all  the  educated 
writing  of  the  eighteenth  century,  too,  it  is  phrased 
with  a  rhythmical  balance  and  urbane  polish  which  give 
it  claim  to  literary  distinction.  After  all,  however,  one 
can  hardly  feel  it  much  more  significant  in  a  history 
of  pure  letters  than  are  the  opinions  in  which  a  little 
later  Judge  Marshall  and  Judge  Story  developed  and 
expounded  the  constitutional  law  which  the  Federalist 
did  so  much  to  establish.  Its  true  character  appears  when 
we  remember  the  most  important  thing  published  in  Eng 
land  during  the  same  years, — the  poetry  of  Robert  Burns. 
The  contrast  between  Burns  and  the  Federalist  tells  the 
whole  literary  story.  Just  as  in  the  seventeenth  century 
the  only  serious  literature  of  America  was  a  phase  of  that 
half-historical,  half-theological  work  which  had  been  a 


Literature  in  America — 1776  to  1800     101 

minor  part  of  English  literature  generations  before;  so  in 
the  eighteenth  century  the  chief  product  of  American 
literature  was  an  extremely  mature  example  of  such  po 
litical  pamphleteering  as  in  England  had  been  a  minor 
phase  of  letters  during  the  period  of  Queen  Anne.  Pure 
letters  in  America  were  still  to  come. 

Even  during  the  seventeenth  century,  however,  as  we 
saw  in  our  glance  at  the  "  Tenth  Muse,"  Mrs.  Anne  Brad- 
street,  there  had  been  in  America  sporadic  and  consciously 
imitative  efforts  to  produce  something  literary.     So  there 
were  during  the   eighteenth  century.     We  had  sundry 
writers  of  aphoristic  verse  remotely  following  the  tradition 
of  Pope;  and  we  had  satire,  modelled  on  that  of  Charles 
Churchill,  a  temporarily  popular  English  writer.     This 
did  not  satisfy  our  growing  national  ambition.     Toward 
the  end  of  the  century,  a  little  group  of  clever  and  enthu 
siastic  men  made  a  serious  attempt  to  establish  a  vigorous  Efforts  to 
native  literature;  and  though  the  results  of  this  effort  were  f^ative11 
neither  excellent  nor  permanent,  the  effort  was  earnest  Literature, 
and  characteristic  enough  to  deserve  attention. 

To  understand  its  place  in  our  literary  records  we  must 
recall  something  of  our  intellectual  history.  This  may  be 
said  to  have  begun  with  the  foundation  of  Harvard  College 
in  1636.  Throughout  the  seventeenth  century,  Harvard, 
then  the  only  school  of  the  higher  learning  in  America, 
remained  the  only  organized  centre  of  American  intellec 
tual  life.  Cotton  Mather,  we  remember,  was  a  Harvard 
graduate,  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Overseers  and  of 
the  Corporation,  and  an  eager  aspirant  for  the  presidency 
of  the  college.  Long  before  his  bnsy  life  was  ended,  how 
ever,  Harvard  had  swerved  from  the  old  Puritan  traditon; 
and  Yale  College,  the  stronghold  of  New  England  ortho- 


102 


The  Eighteenth  Century 


New 


Centre  of 


Dwight. 


doxy,  had  consequently  been  established  in  New  Haven. 
It  was  from  Yale  that  Jonathan  Edwards  graduated. 
The  fact  that  the  centre  of  American  intellectual  life  was 
no  longer  on  the  shores  of  Boston  Bay  was  again  attested 
by  the  career  of  Franklin,  who,  though  born  in  Boston, 
lived  mostly  in  what  was  then  the  principal  city  of  Amer 
ica, — Philadelphia.  In  what  we  said  of  the  Federalist, 
too,  the  same  trend  was  implied. 
Boston  bred  revolutionary  worthies, 
of  course:  James  Otis  was  a  Mas 
sachusetts  man;  so  were  John 
and  Samuel  Adams ;  so  earlier  was 
Thomas  Hutchinson;  so  later  was 
Fisher  Ames.  But  of  the  chief 
writers  of  the  Federalist,  Hamilton 
and  Jay  were  from  New  York ;  and 
Madison  was  one  of  that  great 
school  of  Virginia  public  men 
which  included  Patrick  Henry,  and 
Jefferson,  and  Washington,  and 
Marshall,  and  many  more.  In  the  American  perspective  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  Eastern  Massachusetts  does  not 
loom  so  large  in  the  foreground  as  Massachusetts  tra 
dition  would  have  us  believe. 

So  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  highest  literary  activity 
of  the  later  eighteenth  century  in  America  was  started  at 
Yale  College.  The  most  eminent  of  the  men  of  letters 
who  developed  there  was  TIMOTHY  DWIGHT  (1752-1817), 
a  grandson  of  Jonathan  Edwards.  He  took  his  degree 
in  1769,  and  remained*  a  tutor  at  Yale  until  1777.  He 
then  became  for  a  year  a  chaplain  in  the  Continental 
Army.  While  tutor  at  Yale  he  co-operated  with  his  col- 


Literature  in  A merica—1 776  to  1 800     1 03 

league,  John  Trumbull,  in  the  production  of  some  con 
ventional  essays  modelled  on  the  Spectator.  While  chap 
lain  in  the  army  he  wrote  a  popular  song  entitled  Columbia. 
Of  this  the  last  of  its  six  stanzas  is  a  sufficient  example; 
the  final  couplet  repeats  the  opening  words  of  the  poem : — 

"Thus,  as  down  a  lone  valley,  with  cedars  o'erspread, 
From  war's  dread  confusion  I  pensively  strayed — 
The  gloom  from  the  face  of  fair  heaven  retired  ; 
The  winds  ceased  to  murmur;  the  thunders  expired; 
Perfumes,  as  of  Eden,  flowed  sweetly  along, 
And  a  voice,  as  of  angels,  enchantingly  sung  : 
'  Columbia,  Columbia,  to  glory  arise, 
The  queen  of  the  world,  and  the  child  of  the  skies.'" 

In  1783  Dwight  became  minister  of  Greenfield,  Con-  His  Travels 
necticut.  In  1795  he  was  made  President  of  Yale  College, 
an  office  which  he  held  to  his  death  in  181 7.  As  President, 
he  wrote  his  posthumously  published  Travels  in  New  Eng 
land  and  New  York  (1821-22),  which  record  experiences 
during  a  number  of  summer  journeys  and  remain  an  au 
thority  on  the  condition  of  those  regions  during  his  time. 
He  did  some  sound  work  in  theology  too;  but  by  this  time 
Calvinistic  theology  belongs  apart  from  pure  letters  even  in 
America.  In  1788,  however,  he  published  some  of  his 
ecclesiastical  views  in  an  anonymous  poem  entitled  The 
Triumph  of  Infidelity,  which  expresses  vigorous  theologic 
conservatism  in  the  traditional  manner  of  the  early  Eng 
lish  eighteenth-century  satires.  Dwight  also  wrote  a 
poem  called  Greenfield  Hill  (1794),  which  is  long,  tedious, 
formal,  and  turgid;  but  indicates,  like  the  good  President's 
travels,  that  he  was  touched  by  a  sense  of  the  beauties  of 
nature  in  his  native  country. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  century  the  literary  group  of 


104  The  Eighteenth  Century 

which  President  Dwight  is  the  most  memorable  figure 
developed  into  a  recognized  little  company,  designated 
as  the  " Hartford  Wits";  for  most  of  them,  though  gradu 
ates  of  Yale,  lived  at  one  time  or  another  in  the  old  capital 
of  colonial  Connecticut.  The  chief  of  these  "Hartford 
Wits  "  were  John  Trumbull  and  Joel  Barlow. 

JOHN  TRUMBULL  (1750-1831),  on  the  whole  the  more 
important,  graduated  at  Yale  in  1767.  In  1769  he  co-oper 
ated  with  Dwight  in  publishing  that  series  of  essays  in  the 
manner  of  the  Spectator.  From  1771  to  1773  he  was  a 
tutor  at  Yale;  afterwards  he  practised  law  in  New  Haven 
and  Boston;  and  in  1781  he  went  to  Hartford,  where  he 
remained  as  lawyer  and  later  as  Judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court  until  1819.  From  1825  until  his  death  in  1831  he 
lived  at  Detroit  in  Michigan.  Trumbull's  principal  works 
are  two  long  poems  in  the  manner  of  Butler's  Hudibras 
(1663-1678).  The  first,  entitled  the  "Progress  of  Dul- 
ness,"  and  written  between  1772  and  1774,  satirizes  the 
state  of  clerical  education. 

Trumbull's  other  Hudibrastic  work  is  a  mock  epic 
entitled  M'Fingal,  written  between  1774  and  1782,  which 
satirizes  the  follies  of  his  countrymen,  particularly  of  the 
Tory  persuasion.  The  poem  had  great  popularity;  it  is 
said  to  have  passed  through  more  than  thirty  editions.  A 
taste  of  it  may  be  had  from  the  following  description  of 
how  M'Fingal,  a  caricatured  Tory,  was  punished  by  a 
patriot  mob  for  cutting  down  a  Liberty  pole : — 

"Forthwith  the  crowd  proceed  to  deck 
With  halter'd  noose  M'FingaFs  neck, 
While  he  in  peril  of  his  soul 
Stood  tied  half-hanging  to  the  pole; 
Then  lifting  high  the  ponderous  jar, 
Pour'd  o'er  his  head  the  smoaking  tar. 


Literature  in  America — 1776  to  1800 

With  less  profusion  once  was  spread 
Oil  on  the  Jewish  monarch's  head, 
That  down  his  beard  and  vestments  ran, 
And  covered  all  his  outward  man. 

*  *  *  *  *       v 

His  flowing  wig,  as  next  the  brim, 
First  met  and  drank  the  sable  stream; 
Adown  his  visage  stern  and  grave 
Roll'd  and  adhered  the  viscid  wave; 
With  arms  depending  as  he  stood, 
Each  cup  capacious  holds  the  flood; 
From  nose  and  chin's  remotest  end 
The  tarry  icicles  descend; 
Till  all  o'erspread,  with  colors  gay, 
He  glittered  to  the  western  ray, 
Like  sleet-bound  trees  in  wintry  skies, 
Or  Lapland  idol  carved  in  ice. 
And  now  the  feather-bag  display'd 
Is  waved  in  triumph  o'er  his  head, 
And  clouds  him  o'er  with  feathers  missive, 
And  down  upon  the  tar,  adhesive: 

***** 
Now  all  complete  appears  our  Squire, 
Like  Gorgon  or  Chirmera  dire; 
Nor  more  could  boast  on  Plato's  plan 
To  rank  among  the  race  of  man, 
Or  prove  his  claim  to  human  nature, 
As  a  two-legg'd  unfeather'd  creature." 

Now,  clearly,  this  is  not  Hudibras,  any  more  than  John 
Trumbull,  the  respectable  and  scholarly  Connecticut 
lawyer  of  the  closing  eighteenth  century,  was  Samuel  But 
ler,  the  prototype  of  Grub  Street  in  Restoration  London. 
Most  historians  of  American  literature  who  have  touched 
on  Trumbull  have  accordingly  emphasized  the  difference 
between  WFingal  and  Hudibras.  For  our  purposes  the 


106 


The  Eighteenth  Century 


Joel 
Barlow. 


likeness  between  the  poems  seems  more  significant. 
Butler  died,  poor  and  neglected,  in  1680;  Trumbull  was 
prosperously  alive  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  later;  and 
yet  their  poems  are  so  much  alike  as  to  indicate  in  the 
cleverest  American  satirist  of  the  closing  eighteenth 
century  a  temper  essentially  like  that  of  the  cleverest 

English  satirist  of  a  century  be- 
fdre.  Butler  was  born  less  than 
ten  years  after  Queen  Elizabeth 
died,  and  Trumbull  only  ten 
years  before  the  accession  of 
King  George  III.  These  facts 
are  a  fresh  indication  of  how 
nearly  the  native  temper  of 
America  remained  like  that  of 
the  first  immigration. 

JOEL  BARLOW  (1754  or  1755- 
1812),  the  other  Hartford  Wit 
who  is  still  remembered,  was 
rather  more  erratic.  While  a 
Yale  undergraduate  he  served 
in  the  Continental  Army,  in 
which  he  was  afterward  a  chaplain  from  1780  to  1783. 
In  1786  he  became  a  lawyer  at  Hartford,  where  he  was 
later  the  editor  of  a  weekly  newspaper;  and  in  1787 
he  published  an  epic  poem  entitled  The  Vision  of  Co 
lumbus,  which  by  1807  had  been  elaborated  into  The 
Columbiad.  Even  in  its  first  form  this  turgid  epic  was  the 
most  ambitious  attempt  at  serious  literature  which  had 
appeared  in  the  United  States.  It  brought  Barlow  politi 
cal  influence.  He  went  abroad,  first  as  a  sort  of  business 
agent,  and  had  something  to  do  with  politics  in  both 


Literature  in  America — 1776  to  1800     107 

France  and  England.  From  1795  to  1797  he  was  United 
States  Consul  at  Algiers.  From  1797  to  1805  he  lived 
in  Paris;  from  1805  to  1811  in  Washington.  In  1811  he 
was  made  United  States  minister  to  France,  in  which 
character  he  journeyed  to  meet  Napoleon  in  Russia;  be 
coming  involved  in  the  retreat  from  Moscow,  he  died  from 
exhaustion  at  a  Polish  village  on  Christmas  Eve,  1812. 

Though  The  Columbiad  was  Barlow's  most  serious 
work,  his  most  agreeable  was  a  comic  poem  entitled  The 
Hasty  Pudding.  This,  written  while  he  was  abroad  in 
1793,  is  a  humorous  lament  that  Europe  lacks  a  delicacy 
of  the  table  which,  with  the  Atlantic  between  them,  he 
remembered  tenderly. 

Such  was  the  first  literary  efflorescence  of  independent 
America.    Although  it  contributed  nothing  memorable  to 
the  wisdom  of  the  eternities,  it  was  an  intensely  spirited 
effort,  serious  in  purpose  even  if  sometimes  light  in  form, 
to  create  a  literature  which  should  assert  national  inde 
pendence  as  firmly  as  that  independence  had  been  asserted 
in  politics.     The  result  was  patriotic,  it  was  not  without  The  Hart- 
humor,  it  had  all  sorts  of  qualities  of  which  one  may  speak  partdri^jf 
respectfully.     At  best,  however,  it  was  thoroughly  imita-  and 

.  .  ,  ,.„',..  ,         .  .  Imitative. 

tive,  and  at  the  same  time  full  of  indications  that  its  writers 
lacked  that  peculiar  fusion  of  thought  and  feeling  which 
made  English  character  in  the  eighteenth  century  such  as 
could  fitly  be  expressed  by  the  kind  of  literature  which  the 
Hartford  Wits  so  courageously  attempted.  An  heroic, 
patriotic  effort  they  stand  for,  made  with  enthusiasm,  wit, 
and  courage.  Nobody  can  fairly  hold  them  to  blame  for 
the  fact  that  their  America  still  lacked  national  experience 
ripe  for  expression  in  a  form  which  should  be  distinctive. 
Contemporary  with  the  Hartford  Wits  was  a  much  less 


108  The  Eighteenth  Century 

eminent  man,  until  lately  almost  forgotten,  whose  memory 
is  now  beginning  to  revive.  In  one  or  two  of  his  poems, 
it  now  seems  probable,  we  can  find  more  literary  merit  than 
in  any  other  work  produced  in  America  before  the  nine- 
Philip  teenth  century.  His  name  was  PHILIP  FRENEAU  (1752- 
au'  1832).  He  was  the  son  of  a  New  York  wine  merchant, 
of  French-Huguenot  descent.  He  was  educated  at  Prince 
ton,  and  having  taken  to  the  sea,  was  captured  by  the  British 
during  the  Revolution  and  passed  some  time  on  a  prison 
ship  near  New  York.  After  the  Revolution  he  resumed  his 
mercantile  career.  In  1791  he  became  the  editor  of  a  v,ery 
radical  newspaper  in  Philadelphia.  In  1 798  he  took  to  the 
sea  again ;  and  the  rest  of  his  life  has  no  significance  for  us. 
Freneau  was  a  man  of  strong  feeling,  ardently  in  sym 
pathy  with  the  Revolution,  and  intensely  democratic.  As 
a  journalist  he  was  a  bitter  opponent  of  any  attempt  on 
the  part  either  of  England  or  of  the  more  prudent  class  in 
his  own  country  to  assert  authority;  and  a  considerable 
part  of  his  poetry  consists  of  rather  reckless  satire, 
neither  better  nor  worse  than  other  satire  of  the 
period.  Our  bare  outline  of  his  life,  however,  indicates 
one  characteristic  fact.  The  son  of  a  New  York  man  of 
business,  and  a  graduate  of  Princeton,  Freneau  became 
both  a  practical  sailor  and  a  journalist.  Now,  in  George 
Ill's  England  a  man  who  was  either  scholar,  sailor,  or 
journalist  was  apt  to  be  nothing  else;  but  in  America  to 
this  day  such  a  career  as  Freneau's  remains  far  from  un 
usual.  Far  from  unusual,  too,  it  would  have  been  in  the 
England  of  Queen  Elizabeth, — of  which  probably  the 
most  typical  personage  was  Walter  Ralegh,  soldier,  sailor, 
statesman,  adventurer,  chemist,  historian,  colonizer, 
poet,  and  a  dozen  things  else.  Ralegh's  career  was  one 


Literature  in  America — 1776  to  1800     109 

of  unsurpassed  magnificence;  Freneau's  in  comparison 
seems  petty.  In  both,  however,  one  can  see  the  common 
fact  that  a  man  whose  life  was  intensely  and  variously  busy 
found  himself  instinctively  stirred  to  poetic  expression. 

Though  the  greater  part  of  Freneau's  poetry  was  occa 
sional,  and,  however  interesting  historically,  not  of  the  kind 
which  rises  above  the  dust  of  the  centuries,  he  now  and 
then  struck  a  note  different  from  any  which  had  previously 
been  sounded  in  America.  His  most  generally  recognized 
poem,  "The  Indian  Burying-Ground,"  has  true  beauty. 
In  the  opening  thought,  that  it  were  better  for  the  alert 
dead  to  sit  than  to  lie  drowsing,  there  is  something  really 
imaginative.  And  in  the  pensive  melancholy  with  which 
Freneau  records  the  rock-tracings  of  the  vanished  natives 
of  America,  there  is  likeness  to  the  motive  of  Keats 's 
"Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,"  which,  twelve  years  before 
Freneau  died,  permanently  enriched  English  literature. 

Freneau  expressed  his  motive  simply,  directly,  and  even 
beautifully;  Keats  expressed  his  immortally.  The  con 
trast  is  one  between  good  literature  and  great,  between 
the  very  best  that  America  had  produced  in  the  closing 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  one  of  the  many  ex 
cellent  things  which  England  produced  during  the  first 
twenty  years  of  the  century  which  followed. 

The  literature  produced  in  this  country  between  the  Summary, 
outbreak  of  the  American  Revolution  and  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century  may  fairly  be  typified,  if  not  precisely 
summarized,  by  what  we  have  glanced  at, — the  writings 
of  those  orators  and  public  men  who  reached  their  highest 
expression  in  the  Federalist,  the  conscious  and  imitative 
effort  of  the  Hartford  Wits,  and  the  sporadic  poetry  of 
,  Philip  Freneau. 


IX 

SUMMARY 

WE  have  now  glanced  at  the  literary  history  of  America 
during  the  first  two  centuries  of  American  existence.  In 
the  seventeenth  century,  the  century  of  immigration,  when 
Americans  felt  themselves  truly  to  be  emigrant  English 
men,  they  expressed  themselves  only  in  such  theological 
and  historical  work  as  may  be  typified  by  the  Magnolia 
of  Cotton  Mather.  During  the  eighteenth  century,  the 
century  of  independence,  when  Americans  felt  themselves 
still  Englishmen,  but  with  no  personal  ties  to  England, 
America  produced  in  literature  a  theology  which  ran  to 
metaphysical  extremes,  such  vigorous  common  sense  as 
one  finds  in  the  varied  works  of  Franklin,  and  such  writ 
ings  as  we  have  glanced  at  since.  These  two  centuries 
added  to  English  literature  the  names  of  Shakspere,  Milton, 
Dryden,  Swift,  Addison,  Pope,  Johnson,  and  Burns.  To 
match  these  names  in  America  we  can  find  none  more 
eminent  than  those  of  Cotton  Mather,  Edwards,  Franklin, 
the  writers  of  the  Federalist,  the  Hartford  Wits,  and  Fre- 
neau.  As  we  have  seen,  the  history  of  England  during 
these  two  centuries  was  that  of  a  steadily  developing  and 
increasing  national  experience.  In  comparison,  the  his 
tory  of  America  reveals  just  that  meagreness  of  artistic 
expression  which  we  should  expect  as  the  result  of  her 
national  inexperience. 


BOOK    III 
THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY 


BOOK    III 
THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY 

I 

ENGLISH  HISTORY   FROM  1800  TO   1900 

REFERENCES 
Gardiner,  Chapter  liii-end. 

IN  1800  King  George  III,  who  had  been  forty  years 
on  the  throne,  was  lapsing  into  that  melancholy  madness  e 
in  which  his  sixty  years  of  royalty  closed.  The  last  ten 
years  of  his  reign  were  virtually  part  of  his  successor's, 
the  Prince  Regent,  from  1820  George  IV.  In  1830  King 
William  IV  succeeded  his  brother;  his  reign  lasted  only 
seven  years.  From  1837  until  January,  1901,  the  sovereign 
of  England  was  Queen  Victoria.  During  the  nineteenth 
century,  then,  only  three  English  sovereigns  came  to  the 
throne.  It  chances  that  each  of  these  represents  a  dis 
tinct  phase  of  English  history. 

The  Regency,  under  which  general  name  we  may  for  The 
the  moment  include  also  the  reign  of  George  IV,  was  the  Regency> 
time  when  the  insular  isolation  of  England  was  most  pro 
nounced.     In  1798  Nelson  won  the  battle  of  the  Nile. 
No  incident  more  definitely  marks  the  international  po 
sition  of  England  as  the  chief  conservative  defender  of 
such  traditions  as  for  a  while  seemed  fatally  threatened 

113 


114  The  Nineteenth  Century 

by  the  French  Revolution  becoming  incarnate  in  Napoleon. 
During  the  first  fifteen  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
conflict  persisted,  more  and  more  isolating  England  and 
emphasizing  English  conservatism.  In  1805,  Trafalgar, 
which  finally  destroyed  the  sea  power  of  Napoleon,  made 
the  English  Channel  more  than  ever  a  frontier  separating 
England  from  the  rest  of  Europe.  It  was  not  until  ten 
years  later,  in  1815,  that  Waterloo,  finally  overthrowing 
Napoleon,  made  room  for  the  reaction  which  overran  con 
tinental  Europe  for  thirty  years  to  come;  and  only  then 
could  England  begin  to  relax  that  insularity  which  the 
Napoleonic  wars  had  so  developed  in  English  temper. 
England  is  the  only  country  of  civilized  Europe  where 
Napoleon  never  succeeded  in  planting  his  power;  and 
during  the  first  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  price 
which  England  paid  for  freedom  from  invasion  was  an 
unprecedented  concentration  of  her  own  life  within  her 
own  bounds.  This  era  of  dogged  resistance  to  the  French 
Revolution  finally  developed  the  traditional  type  of  John 
Bull. 

The  Re-  To  suppose  that  England  remained  unmoved  by  revolu- 
183™  BlU>  ti°nary  fervor  would  nevertheless  be  a  complete  mistake. 
Two  years  after  William  IV  ascended  the  throne,  there 
occurred  in  English  politics  an  incident  as  revolutionary 
as  any  which  ever  took  place  in  France.  The  results 
of  it  have  long  since  altered  the  whole  nature  of  Eng 
lish  life,  social  and  political.  Although  revolutionary  in 
purpose,  however,  and  in  ultimate  effect  rather  more  suc 
cessfully  revolutionary  than  any  convulsion  of  continental 
Europe,  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832  was  carried  through 
in  England  by  constitutional  means.  In  brief,  what 
happened  was  this.  The  House  of  Lords,  the  more  con- 


English  History — 1800  to  1900         115 

servative  chamber  of  Parliament,  was  unprepared  to  pass 
the  Reform  Bill;  the  House  of  Commons,  representing, 
it  believed,  the  ardent  conviction  of  the  country,  was  de 
termined  that  the  Bill  should  be  passed.  Thereupon  the 
King  was  persuaded  to  inform  the  Lords  that  in  case  they 
persisted  in  voting  against  the  measure  he  should  create 
new  peers  enough  to  make  a  majority  of  the  House.  This 
threat  brought  the  conservative  peers  to  terms.  They  did 
not  vote  for  the  measure,  but  under  the  leadership  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  they  walked  out  of  the  House  in  silent 
protest.  A  revolutionary  threat  on  the  part  of  the  King 
had  accomplished  under  constitutional  forms  a  peaceful 
revolution. 

Five  years  later  King  William  IV  was  dead.  Then 
began  the  reign  of  the  most  tenderly  human  sovereign  in 
English  history.  For  nearly  sixty-four  years,  in  the  full 
blaze  of  public  life,  she  did  unfalteringly  what  she  deemed 
her  duty.  This  devoted  conscientiousness  has  greatly 
strengthened  English  royalty.  The  fact  that  through 
sixty  years  of  growing  democracy  the  throne  of  England 
was  rilled  by  Queen  Victoria  has  gone  far  to  re-estab 
lish  in  popular  esteem  a  form  of  government  which  it  is 
our  fashion  to  call  a  thing  of  the  past. 

In  general  this  Victorian  era  was  peaceful,  but  still 
one  which  is  best  typified  by  the  latest  title  of  its  sover 
eign.  For  during  the  last  sixty  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century  England  was  quietly  asserting  itself  no  longer 
as  an  isolated  kingdom,  but  as  a  world-empire.  This 
imperialism  of  England  seems  different  from  any  other 
which  has  declared  itself  since  the  antique  empire  of  Rome. 
It  stands  not  for  the  assertion  of  central  and  despotic  au 
thority,  but  rather  for  the  maintenance  of  government  by 


torian 
Era. 


116  The  Nineteenth  Century 

established  custom.  The  English  Common  Law  is  a 
system  not  of  rules,  but  of  principles.  So  long  as  its  in 
fluence  was  confined  to  the  island  where  it  was  developed, 
to  be  sure,  it  still  seemed  impracticably  rigid.  The  Amer 
ican  Revolution,  however,  taught  England  a  lesson 
now  thoroughly  learned, — that  when  English  authority 
asserts  itself  in  foreign  regions,  the  true  spirit  of  the  Com 
mon  Law  should  recognize  and  maintain  all  local  customs 
which  do  not  conflict  with  public  good.  In  India,  for 
example,  local  custom  sanctioned  many  things  essentially 
abominable, — murder,  self-immolation,  and  the  like. 
Such  crimes  against  civilization  the  English  power  has 
condemned  and  repressed.  Harmless  local  custom,  on 
the  other  hand, — freedom  of  worship,  peculiarities  of  land 
tenure,  and  whatever  harmonizes  with  public  order, — the 
English  government  has  maintained  as  strenuously  as  in 
England  itself  it  has  maintained  the  customs  peculiar  to 
the  mother  country.  So  in  Canada  it  has  maintained  a 
hundred  forms  of  old  French  law  ancestral  to  those  prov 
inces.  So  in  Australia  it  has  maintained  many  new  sys 
tems  and  customs  which  have  grown  up  in  a  colony  settled 
since  the  American  Revolution.  Its  modern  state  is  typi 
fied  by  the  fact  that  in  the  judicial  committee  of  the  Privy 
Council — whose  functions  resemble  those  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States — there  are  now  regularly  mem 
bers  from  Canada,  from  India,  from  Australia,  to  pro 
nounce  in  this  court  of  appeal  on  questions  referred  to  the 
mother  country  from  parts  of  the  empire  where  the  actual 
law  differs  from  that  of  England  herself. 

The  Victorian  epoch,  then,  has  begun  to  explain  the 
true  spirit  of  the  English  law:  whatever  the  letter,  this 
spirit  maintains  that  throughout  the  empire,  and  all  the 


English  History — 1800  to  1900        117 

places  where  the  imperial  influence  extends,  the  whole 
force  of  England  shall  sustain  the  differing  rights  and 
traditions  which  have  proved  themselves,  for  the  regions 
«where  they  have  grown,  sound,  safe,  and  favorable  to 
civilized  prosperity. 

Historically,  to  sum  up,  England  began  the  nine-  Summary, 
teenth  century  as  an  isolated  conservative  power.  In 
the  reign  of  King  William  IV  it  underwent  a  revolution 
which  its  ancestral  legal  forms  proved  strong  and  flexible 
enough  to  accomplish  without  convulsion  or  bloodshed; 
and  during  the  long  reign  of  Queen  Victoria  it  more  and 
more  widely  asserted  the  imperial  dominion  of  the  flexibly 
vital  traditions  of  our  Common  Law. 


II 

ENGLISH  LITERATURE   FROM   1800  TO   1900  ¥ 

REFERENCES 

In  addition  to  the  general  authorities  may  be  named  C.  H.  Herford,  The 
Age  of  Words-worth,  London:  Bell,  1897;  Hugh  Walker,  The  Age  0}  Ten 
nyson,  London:  Bell,  1897;  A.  E.  Hancock,  The  French  Revolution  and 
the  English  Poets,  New  York:  Holt,  1899. 

So  we  come  to  the  literature  of  England  during  the  nine 
teenth  century.  By  chance  several  dates  which  we  have 
named  for  other  purposes  are  significant  also  in  literary 
history.  In  1798,  when  Nelson  fought  the  battle  of  the 
Nile,  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  published  their  famous 
Lyrical  Ballads,  the  first  important  expression  of  the  re 
vived  romantic  spirit  in  English  literature.  In  1832,  the 
year  of  the  Reform  Bill,  Scott  died;  Byron,  Shelley,  and 
Keats  were  already  dead;  so  was  Miss  Austen;  and  every 
literary  reputation  contemporary  with  theirs  was  finally 
established. 

From  the  The  period  of  English  literature  which  began  with  the 
Baiiadl  to  Lyrical  Ballads  and  ended  with  the  death  of  Scott  may  be 
the  death  roughly  divided  at  1811;.  the  year  of  Waterloo.  The  chief 

of  Scott.  .  ,     ,     /. 

expression  which  preceded  this  was  a  passionate  outburst 
of  romantic  poetry,  maintaining  in  widely  various  forms 
the  revolutionary  principle  that  human  beings  left  to  them 
selves  may  be  trusted  to  tend  toward  righteousness;  and 
that  sin,  evil,  and  pain  are  brought  into  being  by  those  dis 
tortions  of  human  nature  which  are  wrought  by  outworn 
custom  and  superstition.  Though  this  philosophy  may 
never  have  been  precisely  or  fully  set  forth  by  any  one  of 
the  English  poets  who  flourished  between  1800  and  1815, 

118 


English  Literature— 1800  to  1900      119 

it  pervades  the  work  of  all;  and  this  work  taken  together  is 
the  most  memorable  body  of  poetry  in  our  language,  ex 
cept  the  Elizabethan.  So  far  as  one  can  now  tell,  this 
school  distinguishes  itself  from  the  Elizabethan,  and  from 
almost  any  other  of  equal  merit  in  literary  history,  by  the 
fact  that  the  passionate  devotion  of  these  new  poets  to  the 
ideal  of  freedom  in  both  thought  and  phrase  made  them 
almost  as  different  from  one  another  as  the  poets  of  the 
eighteenth  century  were  alike.  For  all  this,  as  one  reads 
them  now,  one  perceives  a  trait  common  throughout  their 
work.  Despite  the  fervor  of  their  revolutionary  individu 
alism,  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  and  Byron  and  Shelley 
and  the  rest  agreed  eagerly  in  looking  forward  to  an  en 
franchised  future  in  which  this  world  was  to  be  far  better 
than  in  the  tyrant-ridden  past.  This  was  the  dominant 
sentiment  of  English  literature  from  the  battle  of  the  Nile 
to  that  of  Waterloo. 

Between  Waterloo  and  the  Reform  Bill,  a  new  phase  of  The 
feeling  dominated  the  literature  of  England.  Though  NoavveCis eJ 
something  of  this  elder  spirit  of  hope  lingered,  the  most 
considerable  fact  was  the  publication  of  all  but  the  first 
two  of  the  Waverley  Novels.  The  contrast  between  these 
and  the  preceding  poetry  is  impressive.  What  gave  them 
popularity  and  has  assured  them  permanence  is  the 
fervor  with  which  they  retrospectively  assert  the  beauty  of 
ideals  which  even  in  their  own  time  were  almost  extinct. 
The  first  outburst  of  English  literature  in  the  nineteenth 
century  was  a  poetry  animated  by  aspiration  toward  an 
ideal  future ;  the  second  phase  of  that  literature,  expressed 
by  the  novels  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  dwelt  in  carelessly  digni 
fied  prose  on  the  nobler  aspects  of  a  real  past. 

These  two  phases  of  English  literature  roughly  cor- 


120  The  Nineteenth  Century 

Victorian    respond  with  the  Regency  and  the  reign  of  William  IV. 

tiire™  The  literature  which  has  ensued  will  probably  be  known 
to  the  future  as  Victorian;  and  it  is  still  too  near 
us  for  any  confident  generalization.  But  although  there 
has  been  admirable  Victorian  poetry,  of  which  the  most 
eminent  makers  are  now  thought  to  have  been  Ten 
nyson  and  the  Brownings;  and  although  serious  Vic 
torian  prose,  of  which  perhaps  the  most  eminent  makers 
were  Ruskin  and  Carlyle,  has  seemed  of  paramount 
interest,  posterity  will  probably  find  the  most  charac 
teristic  feature  of  Victorian  literature  to  have  been 
fiction.  It  is  almost  literally  to  the  reign  of  Queen  Vic 
toria  that  we  owe  the  whole  work  of  Dickens,  Thack 
eray,  George  Eliot,  and  the  numberless  lesser  novelists  and 
story-tellers  whose  books  have  been  the  chief  reading  of 
the  English-speaking  world,  down  to  the  days  of  Stevenson 
and  Rudyard  Kipling. 

Broadly  speaking,  we  may  accordingly  say  that  up  to  the 
time  of  the  Reform  Bill  the  English  literature  of  the  nine 
teenth  century  expressed  itself  first  in  that  body  of  aspiring 
poetry  which  seems  the  most  memorable  English  utterance 
since  Elizabethan  times,  and  secondly  in  those  novels  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  which,  dealing  romantically  with  the  past, 
indicate  the  accomplishment  of  a  world  revolution;  and 
that  since  the  Reform  Bill  decidedly  the  most  popular 
phase  of  English  literature  has  been  prose  fiction  dealing 
with  contemporary  life. 

Slight  as  this  sketch  of  English  literature  in  the  nine 
teenth  century  has  been,  it  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose, 
which  is  only  to  remind  ourselves  of  what  occurred  in  Eng 
land  during  the  century  when  something  which  we  may 
fairly  call  literature  developed  in  America. 


Ill 

AMERICAN  HISTORY  FROM   1800  TO   1900 

REFERENCES 

GENERAL  AUTHORITIES:  Excellent  short  accounts  are  Channing,  Stu 
dent's  History,  3i7-end;  Hart,  Formation  of  the  Union,  176-end;  Wilson, 
Division  and  Reunion. 

SPECIAL  WORKS  :  The  authorities  mentioned  in  the  brief  bibliographies 
at  the  beginnings  of  chapters  in  the  books  mentioned  above,  and,  for 
minute  study,  the  works  referred  to  in  the  larger  bibliography  mentioned 
below. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Channing  and  Hart,  Guide,  §§  167-214. 

AMID  the  constant  growth  of  democracy,  amid  practical 
assertion  of  the  power  which  resides  in  the  uneducated 
classes,  and  which  our  Constitution  made  conscious,  our 
national  life  began  with  bewildering  confusion.  To  the 
better  classes,  embodied  in  the  old  Federalist  party,  this 
seemed  anarchical;  the  election  of  Jefferson  (1800)  they 
honestly  believed  to  portend  the  final  overthrow  of  law 
and  order.  Instead  of  that,  one  can  see  now,  it  really 
started  our  persistent  progress.  Among  the  early  incidents 
of  this  progress  was  the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  which 
finally  established  the  fact  that  the  United  States  were  to 
dominate  the  North  American  continent.  So  complete, 
indeed,  has  our  occupation  of  this  continent  become  that 
it  is  hard  to  remember  how  in  1800  the  United  States,  at 
least  so  far  as  they  were  settled,  were  almost  comprised 
between  the  Alleghanies  and  the  Atlantic.  In  less  than 
one  hundred  years  we  have  colonized,  and  to  a  considerable 


122  The  Nineteenth  Century 

degree  civilized,  the  vast  territory  now  under  our  undis 
puted  control. 

Our  expansion  began  with  the  purchase  of  Louisiana. 
Nine  years  later,  under  President  Madison,  came  that 
second  war  with  England  which,  while  unimportant  in 
English  history,  was  very  important  in  ours.  The  War 
of  1812  asserted  our  independent  nationality,  our  ability 
to  maintain  ourselves  against  a  foreign  enemy,  and,  above 
all,  our  fighting  power  on  the  sea.  The  War  of  1812, 
besides,  did  much  to  revive  and  strengthen  the  Revolu 
tionary  conviction  that  England  must  always  be  our 
natural  enemy.  Before  that  war  broke  out  there  were 
times  when  conflict  seemed  almost  as  likely  to  arise  with 
France.  It  was  an  incident,  we  can  now  see,  of  that 
death-grapple  wherein  England  was  maintaining  against 
Napoleonic  Europe  those  traditions  of  Common  Law 
which  we  share  with  her.  America  had  felt  the  arbitrary 
insolence  of  Napoleon,  as  well  as  that  of  England;  neu 
trality  proved  impossible.  We  chanced  to  take  arms  once 
more  against  the  mother  country.  Thereby,  whatever  we 
gained, — and  surely  our  strengthened  national  integrity  is 
no  small  blessing, — we  certainly  emphasized  and  pro 
longed  our  Revolutionary  misunderstanding. 

The  next  critical  fact  in  our  history  was  the  assertion  in 
1823  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  In  brief,  this  declares  that 
the  chief  political  power  in  America  is  the  United  States; 
and  that  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  a  foreign  power  to 
establish  colonies  in  America,  or  to  interfere  with  the  gov 
ernments  already  established  there,  will  be  regarded  by 
the  United  States  as  an  unfriendly  act.  This  declaration 
has  generally  been  respected.  Except  for  the  transitory 
empire  of  Maximilian  in  Mexico,  the  integrity  of  the 


American  History— 1800  to  1900       123 

American  continent  has  been  respected  since  President 
Monroe's  famous  message. 

During  the  next  thirty-five  years  developed  that  inevi-  The  civil 
table  national  disunion  which  culminated  in  the  Civil  War 
of  1 86 1.  The  economic  and  social  systems  of  North  and 
of  South  were  radically  different:  generation  by  genera 
tion  they  naturally  bred  men  less  and  less  able  to  under 
stand  each  other.  The  Southerners  of  the  fifties  were 
far  more  like  their  revolutionary  ancestors  than  were  the 
Northerners.  General  Washington  and  General  Lee, 
for  example,  have  many  more  points  of  resemblance  than 
have  President  Washington  and  President  Lincoln;  and 
Lee  was  really  as  typically  Southern  in  his  time  as  Lincoln 
in  those  same  days  was  typically  Northern.  The  Civil 
War  involved  deep  moral  questions,  concerning  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery  and  national  union;  but  on  those  moral 
questions  North  and  South  honestly  differed.  What  ulti 
mately  makes  the  War  so  heroic  a  tradition  is  the  fact  that 
on  both  sides  men  ardently  gave  their  lives  for  what  they 
believed  to  be  the  truth.  The  conflict  was  truly  irrepres 
sible;  the  two  sections  of  our  country  had  developed  in 
ways  so  divergent  that  nothing  but  force  could  prevent 
disunion. 

Disunion  did  not  ensue.  Instead  of  it,  after  a  troubled 
interval,  has  come  a  union  constantly  stronger.  Our 
history  since  the  Civil  War  is  too  recent  for  confident  gen 
eralization.  Two  or  three  of  its  features,  however,  are 
growing  salient.  Long  before  the  Civil  War  certain  phases 
of  material  prosperity  had  begun  to  develop  in  this  coun 
try, — the  great  cotton-growing  of  the  South,  for  one  thing, 
and  for  another,  the  manufactures  of  New  England.  Since 
the  Civil  War  some  similar  economic  facts  have  produced 


124  The  Nineteenth  Century 

marked  changes  in  our  national  equilibrium.  One  has 
been  the  opening  of  the  great  lines  of  transcontinental 
railway.  Along  with  these  has  developed  the  enormous 
growth  of  bread-stuffs  throughout  the  West,  together  with 
incalculable  increase  of  our  mineral  wealth.  These  causes 
have  effected  the  complete  settlement  of  our  national 
Reunion;  territory.  At  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  a  great  part 
mentof"  °f  tne  country  between  the  Mississippi  and  California 
the  west,  remained  virtually  unappropriated.  At  present  almost 
every  available  acre  of  it  is  in  private  ownership. 
Our  continent  is  finally  settled.  Such  freedom  as  our 
more  adventurous  spirits  used  to  find  in  going  West  they 
must  now  find,  if  at  all,  in  emigrating,  like  our  English 
cousins,  to  regions  not  politically  under  our  control.  There 
they  must  face  a  serious  question.  Shall  they  submit  them 
selves  in  these  foreign  places  where  their  active  lives  must 
pass,  to  legal  and  political  systems  foreign  to  their  own; 
or  shall  they  assert  in  those  regions  the  legal  and  political 
principles  which  the  fact  of  their  ancestral  language  makes 
them  believe  more  admirable? 

So  for  the  first  time  since  the  settlement  of  Virginia  and 
New  England  we  come  to  a  point  where  the  history  of  Eng 
land  and  that  of  America  assume  similar  aspects.  For 
nearly  three  centuries  the  national  experience  of  England 
and  the  national  inexperience  of  America  have  tended 
steadily  to  diverge.  Now  the  growing  similarity  of  the 
problems  which  confront  both  countries  suggests  that  in 
years  to  come  we  may  understand  each  other  better. 


IV 

LITERATURE   IN  AMERICA  FROM  1800  TO   1900 

IT  is  only  during  this  nineteenth  century,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  literature  in  America  has  advanced  to  a  point 
where  it  deserves  detached  study.  By  chance  its  various 
phases,  though  not  exactly  like  those  of  contemporary 
English  literature,  fall  into  chronologic  groups  very  like 
those  which  we  noted  in  the  literature  of  the  mother  country. 
During  the  first  thirty  years  of  this  century  the  chief  de 
velopment  of  literature  in  America  took  place  in  the  Mid 
dle  States,  centring — as  the  life  of  the  Middle  States  tended 
more  and  more  to  centre — in  the  city  of  New  York.  The 
literary  prominence  of  this  region  roughly  corresponds 
with  those  years  between  1798  and  1832  which  produced 
the  poets  of  the  Regency  and  the  "Waverley  Novels." 
Meanwhile,  as  we  shall  see  later,  New  England,  which  for 
a  century  past  had  been  less  conspicuous  in  American 
i-ntellectual  life  than  at  the  beginning,  was  gathering  the 
strength  which  finally  expressed  itself  in  the  most  im 
portant  literature  hitherto  produced  in  our  country. 
Broadly  speaking,  this  literature  was  contemporary  with 
the  Victorian.  In  1837,  when  the  Queen  came  to  the 
throne,  it  was  hardly  in  existence;  before  1881,  when 
George  Eliot,  the  third  of  the  great  Victorian  novelists, 
died,  it  was  virtually  complete.  To-day  it  may  be  re 
garded  as  a  thing  of  the  past.  What  has  succeeded  it  is 

125 


126  The  Nineteenth  Century 

too  recent  for  detailed  treatment;  yet  we  must  give  our 
selves  some  account  of  it.  In  the  chapters  to  come,  then, 
we  shall  consider  these  three  literary  epochs  in  turn :  first, 
the  prominence  of  the  Middle  States;  next,  the  Renais 
sance  of  New  England ;  and,  finally,  what  has  followed. 


BOOK    IV 

LITERATURE    IN   THE    MIDDLE 
STATES  FROM    1798  TO   1857 


BOOK    IV 

LITERATURE    IN   THE    MIDDLE 
STATES  FROM   1798    TO   1857 


CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Novels,  6  vols.,  Philadelphia:  McKay,  1887, 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  William  Dunlap,  Life  of  Charles  Brock- 
den  Brown,  2  vols.,  Philadelphia:  James  P.  Parke,  1815;  W.  H.  Pres- 
cott's  Memoir  in  Sparks's  Library  of  American  Biography,  I,  119-180 
and  also  (pp.  1-56)  in  Prescott's  Biographical  and  Critical  Miscellanies, 
New  York:  Harpers,  1845. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  27-28. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  89-100;  Duyckinck,  I,  591-595;  *Stedman 
and  Hutchinson,  IV,  265-292. 

CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN  (1771-1810)  was  born  in  Life. 
Philadelphia,  of  Quaker  parentage.  For  a  while  he 
studied  law,  but  at  the  age  of  about  twenty-five  he  turned 
to  letters.  Before  1796  he  had  contributed  essays  to  the 
Columbus  Magazine;  in  1797  he  published  a  work  on 
marriage  and  divorce  entitled  The  Dialogue  0}  Alcuin. 
In  the  following  year,  the  year  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  he 
produced  his  first  novel,  Wieland,  which  had  popular  suc 
cess.  Within  six  years  he  had  published  five  other  novels : 
Ormond,  1799;  Arthur  Mervyn,  1799-1800;  Edgar  Hunt- 

129 


130        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 


Contem 
porary 
Estimates 
of  Brown. 


ley,  1801;  Clara  Howard,  1801;  and  Jane  Talbot,  1804. 
Meanwhile,  in  1799,  he  had  become  editor  of  the  Monthly 
Magazine  and  American  Review,  which  lasted  only  a  few 
months.  For  five  years  after  1803  he  edited  The  Literacy 
Magazine  and  American  Register. 
The  greater  part  of  his  literary  life 
was  passed  in  New  York. 

Brown's  mature  years  came 
during  that  period,  between  the 
Revolution  and  the  War  of  1812, 
when  the  American  feeling  of 
national  independence  was 
strongest.  For  the  first  time 
Europeans  were  becoming  aware 
that  America  existed.  Native 
Americans  were  consequently 
possessed  by  an  impulse  to  de- 
clare  to  all  mankind,  and  partic 
ularly  to  Europeans,  that  Amer 
icans  are  a  race  of  remarkable  merit.  This  impulse  is 
clearly  evident  in  the  works  of  Brown;  it  is  more  so  still 
in  the  books  which  Dunlap  and  Prescott  wrote  about  him. 
These  biographers  were  disposed  not  only  to  speak  of  him 
in  superlative  terms,  but  also  to  maintain  as  his  chief 
claim  to  eminence  that  his  work,  being  purely  American, 
must  be  thoroughly  original. 

The  most  cursory  glance  at  Brown's  English  contem 
poraries  should  have  reminded  his  biographers  that  no 
.  claim  could  be  much  worse  founded.  During  the  last  ten 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  English  prose  literature 
was  not  particularly  rich.  Among  its  most  conspicuous 
phases  was  a  kind  of  darkly  romantic  novel,  which  prob- 


j&       ~> 


Charles  Brockden  Brown  131 

ably  reached  its  highest  development  in  Germany.  Half 
a  century  before,  English  fiction  had  produced  master 
pieces,  —  Clarissa  Harlowe,  for  example,  Tom  Jones, 
Tristram  Shandy,  and  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield.  Between 
1790  and  1800  English  fiction  was  in  that  apparently  de 
cadent  condition  manifested  by  such  books  as  Lewis's 
Monk  (1795),  Mrs.  Radcliffe's  Mysteries  of  Udolpho 
(1794),  and  Godwin's  more  significant  Caleb  Williams 


Were  there  no  direct  evidence  that  Brockden  Brown  was  Godwin's 
consciously  influenced  by  Godwin,  the  fact  might  be  in-  ^^ 
f  erred    from    the    general    character    of    his    style;    but  Brown. 
Brown's  own  words  assert  that  he  deliberately  made  God 
win  his  model: 

"What  is  the  nature  or  merit  of  my  performance?  .  .  .  When  a 
mental  comparison  is  made  between  this  and  the  mass  of  novels,  I 
am  inclined  to  be  pleased  with  my  own  production.  But  when  the 
objects  of  comparison  are  changed,  and  I  revolve  the  transcendent 
merits  of  Caleb  Williams,  my  pleasure  is  diminished,  and  is  pre 
served  from  a  total  extinction  only  by  the  reflection  that  this  per 
formance  is  the  first."* 

Yet,  although  Brown  followed  Godwin  in  matters  of  Brown's 
political  philosophy,  he  struck  out  for  himself  in  one 
point:  he  aimed  to  depart  from  the  Lewis  and  Radcliffe 
school  by  making  his  backgrounds  American  and  by  using 
incidents  which  had  actually  happened  or  might  happen, 
in  America,  instead  of  the  haunted  castles  of  his  English 
predecessors.  This  intention  he  makes  explicit  in  the 
preface  to  Edgar  Huntley: 

".  .  .  One  merit  the  writer  may  at  least  claim  —  that  of  calling 
forth  the  passions  and  engaging  the  sympathy  of  the  reader  by 

*  Dunlap's  Life  of  Brown,  I,  107. 


132        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

means  hitherto  unemployed.  .  .  .  Puerile  superstition  and  ex 
ploded  manners,  Gothic  castles  and  chimeras,  are  the  materials  usually 
employed  for  this  end.  The  incidents  of  Indian  hostility,  and  the 
perils  of  the  Western  wilderness  are  far  more  suitable;  and  for  a  na 
tive  of  America  to  overlook  these  would  admit  of  no  apology.  These, 
therefore,  are  in  part,  the  ingredients  of  this  tale,  and  these  he  has 
been  ambitious  of  depicting  in  vivid  and  faithful  colours.  The  suc 
cess  of  his  efforts  must  be  estimated  by  the  liberal  and  candid 
reader. " 

wieiand.  One's  first  impression  is  that,  with  this  rather  im 
portant  exception  of  background  and  the  general  char 
acter  of  the  incident,  Brown's  novels  are  merely  imitative. 
After  a  while,  however,  one  begins  to  feel,  beneath  his 
imitation,  a  touch  of  something  individual.  In  Wieiand 
the  hero  is  a  gentleman  of  Philadelphia,  who  in  the  midst 
of  almost  ideal  happiness  is  suddenly  accosted  by  a  mys 
terious  voice  which  orders  him  to  put  to  death  his  super- 
humanly  perfect  wife  and  children.  The  mysterious 
voice,  which  pursues  him  through  increasing  horror, 
declares  itself  to  be  that  of  God.  At  last,  driven  to 
madness  by  this  appalling  visitant,  Wieiand  murders 
his  family.  To  this  point,  in  spite  of  confusion  and 
turgid  ity,  the  story  has  power.  The  end  is  ludicrous 
ly  weak;  the  voice  of  God  turns  out  to  have  been 
merely  the  trick  of  a  malignant  ventriloquist.  The  triv 
iality  of  this  catastrophe  tends  to  make  you  feel  as  if  all 
the  preceding  horrors  had  been  equally  trivial.  Really 
this  is  not  the  case.  The  chapters  in  which  the  mind  of 
Wieiand  is  gradually  possessed  by  delusion  could  have 
been  written  only  by  one  who  had  genuinely  felt  a  sense  of 
what  hideously  mysterious  things  may  lie  beyond  human 
ken.  Some  such  sense  as  this,  in  terribly  serious  form, 
haunted  the  imagination  of  Puritans.  In  a  meretricious 


Charles  Brockden  Brown  133 

form  it  appears  in  the  work  of  Poe.  In  a  form  alive 
with  beauty  it  reveals  itself  throughout  the  melancholy 
romances  of  Hawthorne.  In  Poe's  work  and  in  Haw 
thorne's  it  is  handled  with  mastery,  and  few  men  of 
letters  have  been  much  further  from  mastery  of  their  art 
than  Charles  Brockden  Brown;  but  the  sense  of  horror 
which  Brown  expressed  in  Wieland  is  genuine.  To  feel 
its  power  you  need  only  compare  it  with  the  similar  feeling 
expressed  in  Lewis's  Monk,  in  the  Mysteries  0}  Udolpho, 
or  even  in  Caleb  Williams  itself. 

In  two  of  Brown's  later  novels,  Ormond  (1799)  and 
Arthur  Mervyn  (1799-1800)  there  are  touches  more  directly 
from  life  which  show  another  kind  of  power.     Among  his 
most  poignant  personal  experiences  was  the  terrible  fact 
of  epidemic  yellow  fever.     In  both  Ormond  and  Arthur 
Mervyn  there  are  descriptions  of  this  pestilence  almost  as 
powerful  as  Defoe's  descriptions  of  the  London  plague. 
This  power  of  setting  his  scenes  in  a  vividly  real  back-  vivid 
ground  appears  again  in  Edgar  Huntley.     The  incidents  gra0cunds 
of  this  story  are  unimportant  except  as  they  carry  a  som-  in 
nambulist  into  the  woods  and  caves  of  the  Pennsylvanian  Novels, 
country.     These,  despite  some  theatrically  conventional 
touches,  are  almost  as  real  as  the  somnambulist  is  false. 
Such  incongruities  cannot  blend  harmoniously;  Brown's 
incessant  combination  of  reality  in  nature  with  unreality 
in  character  produces  an  effect  of  bewildering  confusion. 

Nor  is  this  confusion  in  Brown's  novels  wholly  a  matter  His  Plots, 
of  conception.  Few  writers  anywhere  seem  at  first  more 
hopelessly  to  lack  constructive  power.  Take  Arthur 
Mervyn,  for  example :  the  story  begins  in  the  first  person ; 
the  narrator  meets  somebody  in  whose  past  history  he  is 
interested;  thereupon  the  second  personage  begins  to 


134        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

narrate  his  own  past,  also  in  the  first  person ;  in  the  course 
of  this  narrative  a  third  character  appears,  who  soon  pro 
ceeds  to  begin  a  third  autobiography;  and  so  on.  As  one 
who  is  bewildered  by  this  confusion,  however,  pauses  to 
unravel  it,  a  significant  fact  appears.  Whoever  tries  to 
write  fiction  must  soon  discover  one  of  his  most  difficult 
problems  to  be  the  choice  and  maintenance  of  a  definite 
point  of  view.  To  secure  one,  this  device  of  assum 
ing  the  first  person  is  as  old  as  the  Odyssey,  where 
Odysseus  narrates  so  many  experiences  to  the  king 
of  the  Phasacians.  In  brief,  a  resort  to  this  world-old 
device  generally  indicates  a  conscious  effort  to  get  ma 
terial  into  manageable  form.  These  inextricable  tangles 
of  autobiography,  which  make  Brockden  Brown's  con 
struction  appear  so  formless,  probably  arose  from  an 
impotent  sense  that  form  ought  to  be  striven  for;  and, 
indeed,  when  any  one  of  his  autobiographic  episodes 
is  taken  by  itself  it  will  generally  be  found  pretty  satis 
factory. 

His  When  we  come  to  the  technical  question  of  style,  too, 

tyle'  the  simple  test  of  reading  aloud  wrill  show  that  Brockden 
Brown's  sense  of  form  was  unusual.  Of  course  his  work 
shows  many  of  the  careless  faults  inevitable  when  men 
write  with  undue  haste.  His  vocabulary  is  certainly 
turgid ;  and  consciously  trying  to  write  effectively,  he  often 
wrote  absurdly;  but  his  ear  was  true.  If  you  read  him 
aloud,  you  will  find  your  voice  dwelling  where  the  sense 
requires  it  to  dwell. 

Brockden  Brown's  novels  may  be  held  to  mark  the 
beginning  of  literature  in  America.  It  is  noteworthy, 
accordingly,  that  the  literature  of  America  begins  exactly 
where  the  pure  literature  of  a  normally  developed  language 


Charles  Brockden  Brown  135 

is  apt  to  leave  off.     A  great  literature,  originating  from  the  Sum- 
heart  of  the  people,  declares  itself  first  in  spontaneous  songs 


and  ballads  and  legends  ;  it  is  apt  to  end  in  prose  fiction.  Sense  of 
With  labored  and  imitative  prose  fiction  our  American  and  sense 
literature  begins.     This  labored  prose  fiction  of  Brown  ofForm- 
has  traits,  however,  which  distinguish  it  from  similar  work 
in  England.     To  begin  with,  the  sense  of  horror  which 
permeates  it  is  not  conventional  but  genuine.    *Brockden 
Brown  could  instinctively  feel,  more  deeply  than  almost 
any  native  Englishman  since  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  what 
mystery  may  lurk  just  beyond  human  ken.     In  the  second 
place,  Brown's  work,  for  all  its  apparent  confusion,  proves 
confused  chiefly  by  a  futile  attempt  to  fix  his  point  of  view 
through  autobiographic  devices.     In  the  third  place,  he 
reveals  on  almost  every  page  an  instinctive  sense  of  rhyth 
mical  form. 

Brown's  six  novels  are  rather  long,  and  all  are  hastily 
written.  In  his  short,  invalid  life  he  never  attempted  any 
other  form  of  fiction.  As  one  considers  his  work,  how 
ever,  one  may  well  incline  to  guess  that  if  he  had  confined 
his  attempts  to  single  episodes,  —  if  he  had  had  the 
originality  to  invent  the  short  story,  —  he  might  have 
done  work  comparable  with  that  of  Irving  or  Poe  or  even 
Hawthorne.  Brockden  Brown,  in  brief,  never  stumbled 
on  the  one  literary  form  which  he  might  have  mastered; 
pretty  clearly  that  literary  form  was  the  sort  of  romantic 
short  story  whose  motive  is  mysterious  ;  and  since  his  time 
that  kind  of  short  story  has  proved  itself  the  most  charac 
teristic  phase  of  native  American  fiction. 


n 

WASHINGTON   IRVING 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Various  editions,  published  by  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New 
York.  An  excellent  one  is  that  in  40  vols.,  1891-97. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  P.  M.  Irving,  Life  and  Letters  of  Wash 
ington  Irving,  4  vols.,  New  York:  Putnam,  1862-64;  *C.  D.  Warner, 
Washington  Irving,  Boston:  Hough  ton,  1881  (AML). 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  150-154. 

SELECTIONS:  *Carpenter,  124-146;  Duyckinck,  II,  53-59;  Griswold, 
Prose,  206-222;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  V,  41-83. 

j.  K.  PAULDING 

WORKS:  Select  Works,  4  vols.,  New  York:  Scribner,  1867-68. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  W.  I.  Paulding,  Literary  Life  of  James  K. 
Paulding,  New  York:  Scribner,  1867. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  222-223. 

SELECTIONS:  Duyckinck,  II,  6-10;  Griswold,  Poetry,  83-85;  Stedman, 
17;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  IV,  402-419. 

THE  name  of  WASHINGTON  IRVING  (1783-1859)  re 
minds  us  rather  startlingly  how  short  is  the  real  history  of 
American  letters.  Although  he  has  been  dead  for  decidedly 
more  than  forty  years,  many  people  still  remember  him 
personally;  and  when  in  1842  he  went  as  President  Tyler's 
minister  to  Spain,  he  passed  through  an  England  where 
Queen  Victoria  had  already  been  five  years  on  the  throne. 
Life.  Yet  this  Irving,  who  has  hardly  faded  from  living  memory, 

may  in  one  sense  be  called,  more  certainly  than  Brockden 
Brown,  the  first  American  man  of  letters.  He  was  the  first 
whose  work  has  remained  popular;  and  the  first,  too,  who 

136 


Washington  Irving  137 

was  born  after  the  Revolution,  which  made  native  Ameri 
cans  no  longer  British  subjects  but  citizens  of  the  United 
States.  His  parents,  to  be  sure,  were  foreign,  his  father 
Scotch,  his  mother  English;  but  he  himself  was  born  in 
New  York.  He  was  not  very  strong;  his  education  was 
consequently  irregular;  he  read  law  languidly;  and  at  the 
age  of  twenty-one  he  was  sent  abroad  for  his  health.  There 
he  remained  two  years. 

In  1806,  Irving  returned  home;  the  next  year,  in  com 
pany  with  William  Irving  and  James  Kirke  Paulding,  he 
began  writing  a  series  of  essays  called  Salmagundi*  (1807-  saima- 
1808).  Only  his  subsequent  eminence  has  preserved  gun  ' 
from  oblivion  these  conventional  survivals  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  About  this  time  he  fell  in  love  with  a  young 
girl  whose  death  at  seventeen  almost  broke  his  heart. 
When  she  died  he  was  at  her  bedside;  and  throughout 
his  later  life  he  could  not  bear  to  hear  her  name  mentioned. 
The  tender  melancholy  in  so  many  of  his  writings  was 
probably  due  to  this  bereavement. 

In  1809  he  published  his  first  important  book — the 
"Knickerbocker"  History  of  New  York.-\  Shortly  there 
after  he  devoted  himself  to  business;  and  in  1815  he  went 
abroad  in  connection  with  his  affairs.  There,  after  a 
few  years,  commercial  misfortune  overtook  him.  In 
1819  and  1820  he  brought  out  his  Sketch  Book;  from 
that  time  forth  he  was  a  professional  man  of  letters.  He 
remained  abroad  until  1832,  spending  the  years  between 
1826  and  1829  in  Spain,  and  those  between  1829  and  1832 

*  In  cookery,  salmagundi  is  a  dish  "consisting  of  chopped  meats, 
eggs,  anchovies,  onions,  oil,  etc.";  applied  to  literature,  it  means  a  col 
lection  of  miscellaneous  essays. 

f  The  title  is  A  History  of  New  York  from  the  Beginning  of  the  World 
to  the  End  of  the  Dutch  Dynasty  *  *  *  By  Diedrich  Knickerbocker. 


138        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 


Four 


Comic 


as  Secretary  to  the  American  Legation  in  London.  Com 
ing  home,  he  resided  for  six  or  seven  years  at  Tarrytown 
on  the  Hudson,  in  that  house,  "Sunnyside,"  which  has 
become  associated  with  his  name.  From  1842  to  1846 
he  was  Minister  to  Spain.  He  then  finally  returned  home, 
crowning  his  literary  work  with  his  Life  of  Washington, 
of  which  the  first  volume  ap 
peared  in  1855,  and  the  last  —  the 
fifth  —  in  the  year  of  his  death, 
1859. 

Irving  was  the  first  American 
man  of  letters  to  attract  wide 
attention  abroad.  His  Knicker 
bocker  History  was  favorably 
received  by  contemporary  Eng 
land;  and  the  Sketch  -Book  and 
Bracebridge  Hall,  which  followed 
it  in  1822,  were  from  the  begin 
ning  what  they  have  remained, 
—  as  popular  in  England  as  they  have  been  in  his  native 
country.  The  same,  on  the  whole,  is  true  of  his  writ 
ings  about  Spain;  and,  to  a  somewhat  slighter  degree, 
of  his  Life  of  Oliver  Goldsmith  (1840),  and  his  Life 
of  Washington.  The  four  general  classes  of  work  here 
mentioned  followed  one  another  in  fairly  distinct  succession 
through  his  half-century  of  literary  life.  We  may  perhaps 
get  our  clearest  notion  of  him  by  considering  them  in 
turn. 

The  Knickerbocker  History  has  properly  lasted.  The 
origin  of  this  book  resembles  that  of  Dickens's  Pick 
wick  Papers  some  twenty-five  years  later.  Both  began 
as  burlesques  and  ended  as  independent  works  of  fie- 


Washington  Irving 


139 


tion,    retaining   of   their   origin    little    more    trace    than 
occasional  extravagance.     In  1807  Dr.  Samuel  Latham  Origin  and 
Mitchill  had  published  A  Picture  0}  New  York,  ridiculous,  f^KnldL 
even  among  works  of  its  time,  for  ponderous  pretentious- 
ness.     The  book  had  such  success,  however,  that  Irving 
and  his  brother  were  moved  to  write  a  parody  of  it.     Pres 
ently  Irving's  brother  went  abroad,  leaving  the  work  to 


SUNNYSIDE,  IRVING'S  HOME  AT  TARRYTOWN 

Irving  himself.  The  "Author's  Apology"  prefixed  to 
the  Knickerbocker  History  tells  how,  as  he  wrote  on,  his 
style  and  purpose  underwent  a  change.  Instead  of  bur 
lesquing  Mitchill,  he  found  himself  composing  a  comic 
history  of  old  New  York,  and  incidentally  introducing  a 
good  deal  of  personal  and  political  satire,  now  as  forgot 
ten  as  that  which  lies  neglected  in  "Gulliver's  Travels." 
His  style,  which  began  in  deliberately  ponderous  imitation 
of  Dr.  Mitchill's,  passed  almost  insensibly  into  one  of  con 
siderable  freedom,  so  evidently  modelled  on  that  of  eigh 
teenth-century  England  as  to  seem  like  some  skilful  bit 


140        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

of  English  writing  during  the  generation  which  preceded 
the  American  Revolution.  The  substance  of  the  book, 
however,  is  distinctly  different  from  what  was  then  usual 
in  England. 

its  Method.  Assuming  throughout  the  character  of  Diedrich  Knicker 
bocker,  an  eccentric  old  bachelor  who  typifies  the  decaying 
Dutch  families  of  New  York,  Irving  mingles  with  many 
actual  facts  of  colonial  history  all  manner  of  unbridled 
extravagance.  The  governors  and  certain  other  of  his 
personages  are  historical;  the  wars  with  New  Englanders 
are  historical  wars;  and  historical,  too,  is  the  profound 
distaste  for  Yankee  character  which  Irving  needed  no 
assumed  personality  to  feel.  But  throughout  there 
mingles  with  these  historical  facts  the  wildest  sort  of 
sportive  nonsense.  Wouter  Van  Twiller,  to  take  a  casual 
example,  was  an  authentic  Dutch  governor  of  New  Am 
sterdam;  and  here  is  the  way  in  which  Irving  writes 
about  him: — 

"In  his  council  he  presided  with  great  state  and  solemnity.  He 
sat  in  a  huge  chair  of  solid  oak,  hewn  in  the  celebrated  forest  of  the 
Hague,  fabricated  by  an  experienced  timmerman  of  Amsterdam,  and 
curiously  carved  about  the  arms  and  feet,  into  exact  imitations  of 
gigantic  eagle's  claws.  Instead  of  a  sceptre  he  swayed  a  long  Turk 
ish  pipe,  wrought  with  jasmin  and  amber,  which  had  been  presented 
to  a  stadtholder  of  Holland,  at  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty  with  one  of 
the  petty  Barbary  powers.  In  this  stately  chair  would  he  sit,  and 
this  magnificent  pipe  would  he  smoke,  shaking  his  right  knee  with 
a  constant  motion,  and  fixing  his  eye  for  hours  together  upon  a  little 
print  of  Amsterdam,  which  hung  in  a  black  frame  against  the  op 
posite  wall  of  the  council  chamber.  Nay,  it  has  even  been  said  that 
when  any  deliberation  of  extraordinary  length  and  intricacy  was  on 
the  carpet,  the  renowned  Wouter  would  shut  his  eyes  for  full  two 
hours  at  a  time,  that  he  might  not  be  disturbed  by  external  objects — 
and  at  such  times  the  internal  commotion  of  his  mind  was  evinced  by 


Washington  Irving  141 

certain  regular  guttural  sounds,  which  his  admirers  declared  were 
merely  the  noise  of  conflict,  made  by  his  contending  doubts  and 
opinions."* 

More  than  possibly  the  chair  here  mentioned  was  some 
real  chair  which  Irving  had  seen  and  in  which  an  old  Dutch 
governor  might  have  sat.  Conceivably  the  Turkish  pipe 
may  have  been  at  least  legendarily  true.  The  rest  of  the 
passage  is  utter  extravagance;  yet  you  will  be  at  a  little 
pains  to  say  just  where  fact  passes  into  nonsense. 

Though  this  kind  of  humor  is  not  unprecedented,  one 
thing  about  it  is  worth  attention.  When  we  were  con 
sidering  the  work  of  Franklin,  we  found  in  his  letter  to  a 
London  newspaper  concerning  the  state  of  the  American 
colonies  a  grave  mixture  of  fact  and  nonsense,  remarkably 
like  the  American  humor  of  our  later  days.  In  Irving's  its  Humor. 
Knickerbocker  History  we  find  something  very  similar. 
The  fun  of  the  thing  lies  in  frequent  and  often  im 
perceptible  lapses  from  sense  to  nonsense  and  back  again. 
This  deliberate  confusion  of  sense  and  nonsense,  in  short, 
proves  generally  characteristic  of  American  humor;  and 
although  the  formal  amenity  of  Irving's  style  often  makes 
him  seem  rather  an  imitator  of  the  eighteenth-century 
English  writers  than  a  native  American,  one  can  feel 
that  if  the  Knickerbocker  History  and  Franklin's  letter 
could  be  reduced  to  algebraic  formulae,  these  formulae 
would  pretty  nearly  coincide.  The  temper  of  the  Knick 
erbocker  History,  may,  accordingly,  be  regarded  as  freshly 
American.  The  style,  meanwhile,  is  rather  like  that  of 
Goldsmith.  When  the  Knickerbocker  History  was  pub 
lished,  Goldsmith  had  been  dead  for  thirty-five  years. 
In  Irving  we  find  a  man  who  used  the  traditional  style 

*  Bk.  iii,  chap.  i. 


142        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

of  eighteenth-century  England  for  a  purpose  foreign  at 
once  to  the  century  and  the  country  of  its  origin. 

It  was  ten  years  before  Irving  again  appeared  as  a  seri 
ous  man  of  letters.  Then  came  the  Sketch  Book,  which 
contains  his  best-known  stories,  "Rip  Van  Winkle"  and 
"The  Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow."  The  book  is  a  collec 
tion  of  essays  and  short  stories,  written  in  a  style  more  like 
Goldsmith's  than  ever.  The  year  in  which  it  appeared  was 
that  which  gave  to  England  the  first  two  cantos  of  Byron's 
Don  Juan,  Scott's  Bride  of  Lammermoor  and  Legend 
of  Montrose,  Shelley's  Cenci,  and  Wordsworth's  Peter  Bell. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  in  formal  style  the  Sketch 
Essays  Book  is  more  conscientious  than  any  of  these.  Its  prose, 
stories?1  in  fact>  has  hardly  been  surpassed,  if  indeed  it  has  been 
equalled,  in  nineteenth- century  England.  This  prose, 
however,  is  of  that  balanced,  cool,  rhythmical  sort  which 
was  at  its  best  in  England  during  the  mid  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

In  the  Sketch  Book  there  are  many  papers  and  passages 
which  might  have  come  straight  from  some  of  the  later 
eighteenth- century  essayists.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
many  passages,  such  as  are  most  familiar  in  "Rip  Van 
Winkle,"  which  could  hardly  have  appeared  in  Gold 
smith's  England.  Though  Goldsmith's  England  was 
becoming  sentimental,  it  never  got  to  that  delight 
in  a  romantic  past  which  characterized  the  period 
of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  By  1819,  however,  Scott  had 
attained  his  highest  development.  His  work  is  far 
more  passionate  and  profound  than  are  the  roman 
tic  stories  of  Irving;  in  technical  form,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  comparatively  careless,  nor  on  the  whole 
is  it  more  genuinely  permeated  with  the  romantic  senti- 


Washington  Irving  143 

ment  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  story  of  Rip  Van 
Winkle,  for  example,  is  a  legend  which  exists  in  various 
European  forms.  Whether  Irving  adapted  it  from  such 
old  German  tales  as  that  of  the  sleeping  Barbarossa,  or 
from  some  Spanish  story  of  enchanted  Moors,  or  whether 
in  his  time  the  legend  itself  had  migrated  to  the  Hudson 
Valley,  makes  no  difference.  He  assumed  that  it  belonged 
in  the  Catskills.  He  placed  it,  as  a  little  earlier  Brockden 
Brown  placed  his  less  important  romances,  in  a  real  back 
ground  ;  and  he  infused  into  it  the  romantic  spirit  already 
characteristic  of  European  letters,  which  was  soon  to 
be  almost  more  so  of  our  own.  He  enlivened  the  tale, 
meanwhile,  with  a  subdued  form  of  such  humor  as  runs 
riot  in  the  Knickerbocker  History;  and  all  this  modern 
sentiment  he  phrased,  as  he  had  phrased  his  first  book, 
in  the  terms  of  Goldsmith's  time.  The  peculiar  trait  of  The  Pecu- 
the  Sketch  Book  is  this  combination  of  fresh  romantic  ^ sketch 
feeling  with  traditional  Augustan  style.  Book- 

The  passages  of  the  Sketch  Book  which  deal  with  Eng 
land  reveal  so  sympathetic  a  sense  of  old  English  tradition 
that  some  of  them,  like  those  concerning  Stratford  and 
Westminster  Abbey,  have  become  classical;  just  as  Ir- 
ving's  later  work,  Bracebridge  Hall,  is  now  generally  ad 
mitted  to  typify  a  pleasant  phase  of  English  country  life 
almost  as  well  as  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  typified  another, 
a  century  earlier.  There  are  papers  in  the  Sketch  Book, 
however,  which  for  us  are  more  significant.  Take  those, 
for  example,  on  "John  Bull"  and  on  "English  Writers 
Concerning  America."  Like  the  writing  of  Hopkinson  at 
the  time  of  the  American  Revolution,  these  reveal  a  distinct 
sense  on  the  part  of  an  able  and  cultivated  American  that 
the  contemporary  English  differ  from  our  countrymen. 


144        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

Bracebridge  Hall  (1822)  and  the  Tales  of  a  Traveller 
(1824),  which  followed  the  Sketch  Book,  resemble  it  in 
character.  Irving's  most  noteworthy  feat  in  all  three  books 
is  that  he  made  prominent  in  English  literature  a  form  in 
which  for  a  long  time  to  come  Americans  excelled  native 
Englishmen, — the  short  story.  Certainly  until  the  time 
of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  no  English-speaking  writer 
out  of  America  had  produced  many  short  stories  of  such 
merit  as  Hawthorne's  and  Poe's  and  Irving's.  In  this 
fact  there  is  something  akin  to  that  other  fact  which  we 
have  just  remarked, — the  formal  superiority  of  Irving's 
style  to  that  of  contemporary  Englishmen.  A  good  short 
story  must  generally  be  more  careful  in  form  than  a  novel. 
Now,  during  the  nineteenth  century  American  men  of 
letters  have  usually  had  a  more  conscious  sense  of  form  than 
their  English  contemporaries.  The  artistic  conscience 
revealed  in  the  finish  of  Irving's  style  and  in  his  mastery 
of  the  short  story  may  accordingly  be  called  characteristic 
of  his  country. 

Books  on  Equally  characteristic  of  America,  in  the  somewhat 
different  manner  foreshadowed  by  Bracebridge  Hall  and 
the  Tales  of  a  Traveller,  are  the  series  of  Irving's 
writings,  between  1828  and  1832,  which  deal  with  Spain. 
He  was  first  attracted  thither  by  a  proposition  that  he 
should  translate  a  Spanish  book  concerning  Columbus. 
Instead  of  so  doing,  he  ended  by  writing  his  History 
of  the  Life  and  Times  of  Christopher  Columbus  (1828), 
which  was  followed  by  A  Chronicle  of  the  Conquest  of 
Granada  (1829)  and  The  Alhambra  (1832).  For  Ameri 
cans,  Spain  has  sometimes  had  more  romantic  charm  than 
all  the  rest  of  Europe  put  together.  In  the  first  place,  as 
the  very  name  of  Columbus  should  remind  us,  its  history  is 


Washington  Irving  145 

inextricably  connected  with  our  own.  In  the  second  place, 
at  just  the  moment  when  this  lasting  connection  between 
Spain  and  the  New  World  declared  itself,  the  eight  hun 
dred  years'  struggle  between  Moors  and  Spaniards  had 
at  length  ended  in  the  triumph  of  the  Christians;  and  no 
other  conflict  of  the  whole  European  past  involved  a  con 
trast  of  life  and  of  ideals  more  vivid,  more  complete,  more 
varied,  or  more  prolonged.  In  the  third  place,  the  stagna 
tion  of  Spain  began  almost  immediately;  so  in  the  early 
nineteenth  century  Spain  had  altered  less  since  1492 
than  any  other  part  of  Europe.  Elsewhere  an  Ameri 
can  traveller  could  find  traces  of  the  picturesque,  romantic, 
vanished  past.  In  Spain  he  could  find  a  state  of  life  so 
little  changed  from  olden  time  that  he  seemed  almost 
to  travel  into  that  vanished  past  itself. 

Now,  as  the  American  character  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury  has  declared  itself,  few  of  its  aesthetic  traits  are  more 
marked  than  eager  delight  in  olden  splendors.  Such 
delight,  of  course,  has  characterized  the  nineteenth  century 
in  Europe  as  well  as  among  ourselves.  A  modern  Lon 
doner,  however,  who  can  walk  in  a  forenoon  from  West 
minster  Abbey  to  the  Temple  Church  and  so  to  the 
Tower,  can  never  dream  what  such  monuments  mean  to 
an  imagination  which  has  grown  up  amid  no  grander 
relics  of  antiquity  than  King's  Chapel  or  Independence 
Hall.  Americans  can  still  feel  the  romance  even  of 
modern  London  or  Paris;  and  to  this  day  there  is  no  spot 
where  our  starved  craving  for  picturesque  traces  of  a 
human  past  can  be  more  profusely  satisfied  than  in  Spain. 
No  words  have  ever  expressed  this  satisfaction  more 
sincerely  or  more  spontaneously  than  the  fantastic  stories 
of  old  Spain  which  Irving  has  left  us. 


146        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

Biog-  His  later  work  was   chiefly  biographical.     Both   his 

Goldsmith  and  his  Washington  are  written  with  all  his 
charm  and  with  vivid  imagination.  Irving,  however,  was 
no  trained  scholar.  He  was  far  even  from  the  critical 
habit  of  the  New  England  historians,  and  further  still 
from  such  learning  as  now  makes  our  best  history  some 
thing  like  exact  science.  He  was  almost  as  anxious  to  write 
harmingly  as  to  write  truly;  but  in  itself  this  desire  was 
beautifully  true.  Throughout  Irving  wrote  as  well  as  he 
could,  and  he  knew  how  to  write  better  than  almost  any 
contemporary  Englishman. 

summary.  Our  hasty  glance  at  Irving's  literary  career  has  shown 
what  this  first  American  who  established  a  lasting  Euro 
pean  reputation  really  accomplished.  His  greatest  merits 
are  artistic  conscience  and  purity  of  style.  If  we  ask 
ourselves,  however,  what  he  used  his  style  to  express, 
we  find  in  the  first  place  a  quaintly  extravagant  humor 
growing  more  delicate  with  the  years;  next  we  find  ro 
mantic  sentiment  set  forth  in  the  literary  manner  of  a  past 
English  generation  whose  temper  had  been  not  romantic, 
but  classical;  then  we  find  a  deep  delight  in  the  splendors 
of  a  romantic  past;  and  finally  we  come  to  pleasantly 
vivid  romantic  biographies.  Clearly  Irving  had  no  mes 
sage;  he  was  animated  by  no  profound  sense  of  the 
mystery  of  existence.  All  he  did  was  to  set  forth  delicate, 
refined,  romantic  sentiment  in  delicate,  refined,  classic 
style. 

This  was  the  first  recognized  literary  revelation  of  the 
New  World  to  the  Old.  In  a  previous  generation,  Edwards 
had  made  American  theology  a  fact  for  all  Calvinists  to 
reckon  with.  The  political  philosophers  of  the  Revolu 
tion  had  made  our  political  and  legal  thought  matters 


Washington  Irving  147 

which  even  the  Old  World  could  hardly  neglect.  When 
we  come  to  pure  literature,  however,  in  which  America 
should  at  last  express  to  Europe  what  life  meant  to  men  of 
artistic  sensitiveness  living  under  the  conditions  of  our 
new  and  emancipated  society,  what  we  find  is  little  more 
than  greater  delicacy  of  form  than  existed  in  contemporary 
England.  Irving  is  certainly  a  permanent  literary  figure. 
What  makes  him  so  is  not  novelty  or  power,  but  charming 
refinement. 


Ill 

JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Novels  (Mohawk  Edition),  32  vols.,  New  York:  Putnam 
1896.  Cooper's  other  works  are  out  of  print;  for  their  titles,  see  tne 
bibliographies  mentioned  below. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  T.  R.  Lounsbury,  James  Femmore 
Cooper,  Boston:  Houghton,  1882  (AML);  W.  B.  S.  Clymer,  James  Fem- 
more  Cooper,  Boston:  Small,  Maynard  &  Co.,  1900.  (B.B.) 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  59-63;  Lounsbury's  Cooper,  290-299. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  153-171;  Duyckinck,  II,  113-117;  *StecLnan 
and  Hutchinson,  V,  138-183. 

IN  1820,  American  literature,  so  far  as  it  has  survived, 
consisted  of  the  novels  of  Brockden  Brown,  then  ten  years 
dead,  and  of  Irving's  Sketch  Book,  which  had  begun  to 
appear  the  year  before.  Apart  from  these  works,  what 
had  been  produced  in  this  country  was  obviously  so  imi 
tative  as  to  express  only  a  sense  on  the  part  of  our  numer 
ous  writers  that  they  ought  to  copy  the  eminent  authors 
of  England.  In  1820  appeared  the  first  work  of  a  new 
novelist,  soon  to  attain  not  only  permanent  reputation 
in  America,  but  also  general  European  recognition.  This 
was  JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER  (1789-1851). 

Life.  He  was  born  in  New  Jersey.     When  he  was  about  a 

year  old  his  father,  a  gentleman  of  means,  migrated  to 
that  region  in  Central  New  York  where  Cooperstown 
still  preserves  his  name.  Here  the  father  founded 
the  settlement  where  for  the  rest  of  his  life  he  main- 

148 


James  Fenimore  Cooper  149 

tained  a  position  of  almost  feudal  superiority.  Here, 
in  a  country  so  wild  as  to  be  almost  primeval,  Cooper 
was  brought  up.  Before  he  was  fourteen  years  old  he 
went  to  Yale  College ;  but  some  academic  trouble  brought 
his  career  there  to  a  premature  end.  The  years  between 
1806  and  1810  he  spent  at  sea,  first  on  a  merchant  vessel, 
afterwards  as  an  officer  in  the  navy.  In  1811,  having 
married  a  lady  of  the  Tory  family  of  De  Lancey,  he  re 
signed  his  commission. 

After  several  years  of  inconspicuous  life — he  was  living 
at  the  time  in  the  country  near  New  York  City — he  read 
some  now  forgotten  English  novel;  and  stirred  by  the 
notion  that  he  could  write  a  better,  he  rapidly  produced  the 
novel  Precaution  (1820).  This  was  a  tale  of  life  in  Eng-  His  First 
land,  of  which  at  the  time  Cooper  knew  very  little.  It  had 
a  measure  of  success,  being  mistaken  for  the  anonymous 
work  of  some  English  woman  of  fashion.  In  the  follow 
ing  year  Cooper  produced  The  Spy,  an  historical  novel 
of  the  American  Revolution,  then  less  than  fifty  years 
past.  In  1823  came  The  Pioneers,  the  first  in  publica 
tion  of  his  Leather-Stocking  tales;  and  just  at  the  begin 
ning  of  1824  appeared  The  Pilot,  the  first  of  his  stories  of 
the  sea.  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  perhaps  his  master 
piece,  was  published  in  1826.  In  that  year  he  went  abroad, 
where  he  remained  for  seven  years.  He  then  came  home, 
and  thereafter  resided  -mostly  on  the  ancestral  estate  at 
Cooperstown.  Peculiarities  of  temper  kept  him  through 
out  his  later  years  in  chronic  quarrels  with  the  public, 
with  his  neighbors,  and  with  almost  everybody  but  some 
of  his  personal  friends,  who  remained  strongly  attached 
to  him. 

At  the  age  of  thirty,  as  we  have  seen,  Cooper  had  never 


150        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 


published  anything;  he  died  at  the  age  of  sixty-two  having 
written  some  ninety  volumes.  Of  these  hastily  written 
works  a  number  dealt  with  matters  of  fact ;  for  one  thing, 
with  characteristic  asperity  and  lack  of  tact,  he  published 
various  comments  on  both  America  and  England,  in 
which  he  seemed  chiefly  animated  by  a  desire  to  em 
phasize  those  truths  which  would  be  least  welcome  to 

the   people   concerned.    He 
wrote,   too,    a   History    of  the 
Navy  of  the   United  States  of 
America  (1839),  which  contrib 
uted  to  his  personal  difficulties. 
Most    of    these     contentious 
works,     however,     were    pub 
lished     after    1832.      Between 
1820    and    1832,     meantime, 
Cooper  had  produced  at  least 
ten    novels    which    have    held 
their    position    in   literature. 
What    is    more,    these    novels 
almost     immediately    attained 
world- wide    reputation ;    they 
Popularity    were  translated  not  only  into  French,  but  also  into  many 
Novels.        other  languages  of  continental  Europe,  in  which  they  pre 
serve  popularity.     Great  as  was  his  success  at  home  and  in 
England,  indeed,  it  is  sometimes  said  to  have  been  exceeded 
by  that  which  he  has  enjoyed  throughout   continental 
Europe. 

This  great  success  is  perhaps  summarized  in  the  fact 
that  Cooper  has  been  called  the  American  Scott,  and  in 
deed  was  so  called  in  his  own  time,  for  his  reputation  was 
literally  contemporary  with  Sir  Walter's.  The  Spy  ap- 


James  Fenimore  Cooper  151 

peared  in  the  same  year  with  Kenilworth  and  The  Pirate,  cooper 
The  Pilot  in  the  year  of  Quentin  Durward.  Scott  and  J"*tt_ 
Cooper,  however,  really  belong  to  different  categories  of 
merit.  Scott,  saturated  with  the  traditions  of  a  brave 
old  human  world,  was  gifted  with  an  imagination  so  ro 
bust  as  to  have  invented  in  the  historical  novel  a  virtually 
new  form  of  literature,  and  to  have  enlivened  it  with  a 
host  of  characters  so  vital  that  among  the  creatures  of 
English  imagination  his  personages  rank  almost  next  to 
Shakspere's.  When  Cooper  began  to  write,  Waverley  was 
already  about  six  years  old.  In  a  certain  sense  he  may 
therefore  be  said  to  have  imitated  Scott;  it  is  doubtful, 
however,  whether  he  was  by  any  means  so  conscious  of  his 
model  as  Brockden  Brown  was  of  Godwin,  or  Irving  of 
Goldsmith.  The  resemblance  between  Cooper  and  Scott 
lies  chiefly  in  the  fact  that  each  did  his  best  work  in  fiction 
dealing  with  the  romantic  past  of  his  own  country.  By 
just  so  much,  then,  as  the  past  of  Cooper's  America  was  a 
slighter,  less  varied,  less  human  past  than  that  of  Scott's 
England  or  Scotland,  Cooper's  work  must  remain  inferior 
to  Scott's  in  human  interest.  Partly  for  the  same  reason, 
the  range  of  character  created  by  Cooper  is  far  less  wide 
than  that  brought  into  being  by  Sir  Walter.  Cooper, 
indeed,  as  the  very  difficulties  of  his  later  life  would  show, 
was  temperamentally  narrow  in  sympathy.  To  compare 
him  with  Scott,  indeed,  except  for  the  matter  of  popu 
larity,  in  which  they  have  often  been  equal,  is  needlessly 
to  belittle  Cooper.  Here  we  may  better  consider  him  in 
connection  with  his  American  contemporaries. 

When  The  Spy  was  published,  the  novels  of  Brockden 
Brown  were  already  almost  forgotten;  and  Irving  had  pro 
duced  only  The  Knickerbocker  History  and  the  admir- 


152        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

able  essays  of  his  Sketch  Book.  The  Spy  is  an  historical 
novel  of  the  American  Revolution,  often  conventional, 
but  at  the  same  time  set  in  a  vivid  background ;  for  Cooper, 
actually  living  in  the  country  where  he  laid  his  scenes,  sin 
cerely  endeavored  not  only  to  revive  the  fading  past,  but 
cooper's  to  do  full  justice  to  both  sides  in  that  great  conflict  which 
grounds,  disunited  the  English-speaking  races.  In  The  Pilot  we 
have  a  somewhat  similar  state  of  things ;  but  here,  instead 
of  laying  the  scene  on  American  soil,  Cooper  lays  it  for 
the  first  time  in  literature  aboard  an  American  ship.  The 
Pilot  is  very  uneven.  The  plot  is  conventionally  trivial ; 
and  most  of  the  characters  are  more  so  still.  But  Long 
Tom  Coffin  is  a  living  Yankee  sailor;  and  when  we  come 
to  the  sea,  with  its  endless  variety  of  weather,  and  to  sea- 
fights,  such  as  that  between  the  "Ariel"  and  the  "Alac 
rity,"  it  would  be  hard  to  find  anything  better.  If  the 
plot  and  the  characters  had  been  half  so  good  as  the 
wonderful  marine  background  in  which  they  are  set, 
the  book  would  have  been  a  masterpiece. 

Something  similar  may  be  said  of  the  Leather-Stocking 
stories,*  of  which  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  published 
in  1826,  is  probably  the  best.  The  trivially  conventional 
plots  concern  characters  who,  with  the  exception  of 
Leatherstocking  himself,  are  not  particularly  like  any 
thing  recorded  in  human  history.  The  woods  and  the 
inland  waters,  on  the  other  hand,  amid  which  the  scenes 
of  these  stories  unroll  themselves,  are  true  American 
forests  and  lakes  and  streams.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to 
say  that  Cooper  introduced  certain  aspects  of  Nature 

*  These  are,  in  their  order  as  successive  chapters  in  the  life  of  their 
hero:  The  Deer  slayer  (1841);  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans  (1826);  The 
Pathfinder  (1840);  The  Pioneers  (1823);  The  Prairie  (1827). 


James  Fenimore  Cooper  153 

unknown  to  literature  before  his  time,  and  of  a  kind 
which  could  have  been  perceived  and  set  forth  only  by  an 
enthusiastic  native  of  that  newest  of  nations  to  which  he 
was  so  devotedly  attached. 

Though  Cooper  thoroughly  loved  his  country,  he  saw  Cooper's 
in  it  traits  which  by  no  means  delighted  him.  So  in  his 
Notions  of  the  Americans  Picked  Up  by  a  Travelling 
Bachelor,  published  in  1828,  when  his  popularity  was  at 
its  height,  he  expressed  concerning  our  countrymen  views 
which  may  be  summarized  in  the  statement  that  Ameri 
cans,  though  full  of  energy  and  other  admirable  qualities, 
have  a  blind  passion  for  money-seeking,  an  undue  respect 
for  popular  opinion,  and  an  irrepressible  tendency  to  brag. 
For  this  he  was  called  Anglomaniac;  his  Anglomania, 
however,  did  not  prevent  him  from  writing  just  as  frankly 
about  the  English,  of  whom  his  published  views  may 
similarly  be  summarized  in  the  statement  that  the  Eng 
lish  are  not  only  the  most  efficiently  powerful  nation  in  the 
world,  but  also  by  far  the  most  snobbish.  Both  nations 
resented  these  comments  by  bestowing  upon  Cooper  in 
reputable  reviews  such  epithets  as  "superlative  dolt,"  "bil 
ious  braggart,"  "liar,"  "full  jackass,"  "insect,"  "grub," 
and  "reptile." 

The  troubles  in  which  he  thus  involved  himself  during 
his  last  twenty  years  were  enhanced  not  only  by  those 
which  sprang  from  his  honest  effort  to  be  fair  in  his  His 
tory  of  the  Navy,  but  by  quarrels  with  neighbors  at  Coop- 
erstown,  concerning  the  public  use  of  some  land  to  which 
he  held  a  clear  title,  and  by  various  infirmities  of  temper. 
Intensely  aristocratic  in  personal  feeling,  he  cherished  the 
most  democratic  general  sentiments,  believing  equally  in 
the  rights  of  man  and  in  the  vileness  of  any  actual  populace. 


154        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

In  politics  he  was  a  Democrat,  but  he  hated  free  trade  as 
blindly  as  Tory  squire  ever  loved  the  Corn  Laws.  One 
can  begin  to  see  why  he  wished  no  biography  made  of 
what  he  must  have  felt  to  be  a  life  of  misunderstanding 
and  vexation. 

Summary.  Yet,  now  that  he  has  been  half  a  century  in  his  grave, 
little  memory  is  left  of  his  foibles  or  his  troubles.  The 
Cooper  who  survives  in  popular  memory  is  the  author  of 
those  wholesome  novels  of  sea  and  of  forest  which  were 
the  first  American  writings  to  win  and  to  keep  wide  popu 
larity.  In  touching  on  them  we  remarked  the  extraordi 
nary  truthfulness  of  their  background ;  and  this,  probably, 
is  the  trait  which  gives  them  their  highest  positive  value. 
It  is  hardly  to  so  unusual  a  quality,  however,  that  they  have 
owed  their  popular  vitality.  Their  plots,  though  conven 
tional,  are  put  together  with  considerable  skill.  In  spite 
of  prolixity  one  constantly  feels  curious  to  know  what  is 
coming  next.  In  spite  even  of  lifeless  characters,  this 
skilful  handling  of  plot  makes  one  again  and  again  feel 
unexpected  interest  concerning  what  these  personages  are 
going  to  do  or  what  is  going  to  happen  to  them.  As  we 
have  seen  already,  too,  crucial  episodes,  such  as  the  wreck 
of  the  "Ariel"  in  The  Pilot,  possess,  in  spite  of  careless 
phrasing,  a  vividness  and  a  bravery  sure  to  appeal  to 
broad  human  temper.  Cooper's  commonplace  plots,  in 
short,  are  often  interesting  enough  to  atone  for  their  pro 
lixity;  and  whatever  the  conventionality  of  his  characters, 
the  spirit  of  his  books  is  vigorously  brave  and  manly. 

Excellent  as  these  traits  are,  however,  they  are  not  spe 
cifically  American.  Another  trait  of  Cooper's  work,  less 
salient,  but  just  as  constant,  may  fairly  be  regarded  as 
national.  From  beginning  to  end  of  his  writings  there  is 


James  Fenimore  Cooper  155 

hardly  a  passage  which  anybody  would  hesitate  to  put  into  coope 
the  hands  of  a  child;  nor  does  this  purity  seem  studied, 
The  scenes  of  his  novels  are  often  laid  in  very  rough 
places,  and  as  a  natural  consequence  many  of  his  char 
acters  and  incidents  are  of  a  rough,  adventurous  kind; 
but,  with  a  delicacy  as  instinctive  as  his  robustness,  Cooper 
avoids  those  phases  of  rough  human  life  which  are  es 
sentially  base. 

Cooper  lived  until  1851,  and  Irving  lived  eight  years 
longer.  As  both  men  wrote  until  they  died,  their  work 
might  evidently  be  held  to  extend  to  a  later  period  than 
that  in  which  we  are  considering  them;  for  here  we  have 
treated  them  as  almost  contemporary  with  Brockden 
Brown,  who  died  in  1810.  In  another  aspect,  however, 
they  belong  very  early  in  the  history  of  American  letters. 
In  1798,  we  remember,  the  year  when  Wordsworth  and 
Coleridge  published  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  appeared  also 
Brockden  Brown's  Wieland.  In  1832  the  death  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott  brought  to  an  end  that  epoch  of  English  let 
ters  which  the  Lyrical  Ballads  may  be  said  to  have  opened. 
In  that  year  Brown  had  long  been  dead;  and  both  Irving 
and  Cooper  had  still  some  years  to  write.  The  reputation 
of  each,  however,  was  virtually  complete.  Irving  had 
already  published  his  Knickerbocker  History,  his  Sketch 
Book,  his  Bracebridge  Hall,  his  Tales  of  a  Traveller,  his 
Life  of  Columbus,  his  Fall  of  Granada,  and  his  Alhambra; 
nothing  later  materially  increased  his  reputation.  Cooper 
had  published  The  Spy,  The  Pioneers,  The  Pilot,  Lionel 
Lincoln,  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  The  Prairie,  the  Red 
Rover,  the  Wept  of  Wish- ton-Wish,  The  Water  Witch,  and 
the  Bravo.  When  Scott  died,  it  thus  appears,  Cooper  too 
had  produced  enough  to  make  his  reputation  permanent. 


156        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

The  three  writers  whom  we  have  considered — Brockden 
Brown,  Irving,  and  Cooper — were  the  only  Americans  who 
between  1798  and  1832  achieved  lasting  names  in  prose. 
Though  they  form  no  school,  though  they  are  very  different 
from  one  another,  two  or  three  things  may  be  said  of  them 
in  common.  They  all  developed  in  the  Middle  States; 
the  names  of  all  are  associated  with  the  chief  city  of  that 
region,  New  York.  The  most  significant  work  of  all 
assumed  a  form  which  in  the  general  history  of  literatures 
comes  not  early  but  late, — prose  fiction.  This  form, 
meantime,  happened  to  be  on  the  whole  that  which  was 
most  popular  in  contemporary  England. 

Again,  in  the  previous  literature  of  America,  if  literature 
it  may  be  called,  two  serious  motives  were  expressed.  In 
the  first  place,  particularly  in  New  England,  there  was 
Brown,  a  considerable  development  of  theologic  thought.  A  little 
^rvmg,  iaterj  partly  in  New  England,  but  more  in  Virginia  and  in 
Cooper.  New  York,  there  was  admirable  political  writing.  These 
two  motives — the  one  characteristic  of  the  earliest  type 
of  native  American,  the  second  of  that  second  type  which 
politically  expressed  itself  in  the  American  Revolution — 
may  be  regarded  as  expressions  in  this  country  of  the  two 
ideals  most  deeply  inherent  in  our  native  language, — those 
of  the  Bible  and  of  the  Common  Law.  Whatever  the  ulti 
mate  significance  of  American  writing  during  the  seven 
teenth  or  the  eighteenth  centuries,  such  of  it  as  now  re 
mains  worthy  of  attention  is  earnest  in  purpose,  dealing 
either  with  the  eternal  destinies  of  mankind  or  with  deep 
problems  of  political  conduct. 

Our  first  purely  literary  expression,  on  the  other  hand, 
shows  a  different  temper.  Neither  Brown  nor  Irving  nor 
Cooper  has  left  us  anything  profoundly  significant.  All 


James  Fenimore  Cooper  157 

three  are  properly  remembered  as  writers  of  wholesome 
fiction;  and  the  object  of  wholesome  fiction  is  neither  to 
lead  men  heavenward  nor  to  teach  them  how  to  behave 
on  earth;  it  is  rather  to  please.  There  is  a  commonplace 
which  divides  great  literature  into  the  literature  of  knowl 
edge,  which  enlarges  the  intellect,  and  that  of  power, 
which  stimulates  the  emotions  until  they  become  living 
motives.  Such  work  as  Brockden  Brown's  or  Irving's  or 
Cooper's  can  hardly  be  put  in  either  category.  Theirs  is 
rather  a  literature  of  wholesome  pleasure. 

This  prose  on  which  we  have  now  touched  was  the  most 
important  literature  produced  in  New  York,  or  indeed  in 
America,  during  the  period  which  was  marked  in  England 
by  everything  between  the  Lyrical  Ballads  and  the  death 
of  Scott.  Even  in  America,  however,  the  time  had  its 
poetry.  At  this  we  must  now  glance. 


IV 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 
REFERENCES 

BRYANT 

WORKS:  Poetical  Works,  ed.  Parke  Godwin,  2  vols.,  New  York:  Apple- 
ton,  1883;  Prose  Writings,  ed.  Godwin,  2  vols.,  New  York:  Appleton, 
1884. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  *Parke  Godwin,  A  Biography  of  William 
Cullen  Bryant,  with  Extracts  from  his  Private  Correspondence,  2  vols., 
New  York:  Appleton,  1883;  John  Bigelow,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  Bos 
ton:  Houghton,  1890;  (AML)  *Stedman,  Poets  of  America,  Chapter  III. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  29-34. 

SELECTIONS:  Duyckinck,  II,  186-191;  Griswold,  Poetry,  171-183; 
Hart,  Contemporaries,  IV,  No.  76;  Stedman,  53-67;  *Stedman  and 
Hutchinson,  V,  305-325. 

DRAKE   AND   HALLECK 

WORKS:  Drake's  Culprit  Fay,  New  York:  Putnam,  1890;  Halleck's 
Poetical  Writings,  with  Extracts  from  those  oj  Joseph  Rodman  Drake,  ed. 
J.  G.  Wilson,  New  York:  Appleton,  1869. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  Halleck's  Life  and  Letters,  ed.  J.  G.  Wil 
son,  New  York:  Appleton,  1869. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  74-75  and  107-108. 

SELECTIONS:  Duyckinck,  II,  205-207  and  209-212;  Griswold,  Poetry, 
204-210  and  212-218;  Stedman,  36-40  and  42-47;  *Stedman  and  Hutch 
inson,  V,  216-225  and  363-379. 

IN  the  early  summer  of  1878  there  died  at  New  York, 
from  a  sunstroke  received  just  after  delivering  a  speech 
at  the  unveiling  of  a  monument  in  Central  Park,  WILLIAM 
CULLEN  BRYANT  (1794-1878),  by  far  the  most  eminent 
man  of  letters  in  our  chief  city.  The  circumstances  of 
his  death  show  how  thoroughly  he  retained  his  vitality 

158 


William  Cullen  Bryant  159 

to  the  end;  and  his  striking  personal  appearance  com 
bined  with  the  extreme  physical  activity  which  kept  him 
constantly  in  the  streets  to  make  him  a  familiar  local 
figure.  Yet  his  first  published  work — a  very  precocious 
one,  to  be  sure, — had  appeared  before  Brockden  Brown 
died,  in  the  same  year  with  Scott's  Marmion;  and  this 
remote  1808  had  seen  the  Quarterly  Review  founded  in 
England,  and  Andover  Seminary  in  Massachusetts.  Bry 
ant's  "Thanatopsis"  had  been  printed  in  1817,  the  year  in 
which  Byron  wrote  Manfred,  in  which  Jane  Austen  died, 
in  which  Coleridge  produced  his  Biographia  Literaria, 
and  Keats  the  first  volume  of  his  poems,  and  Mrs.  Shelley 
her  Frankenstein,  and  Moore  his  Lalla  Rookh.  A  collected 
edition  of  Bryant's  poems  had  appeared  in  1821,  the  year 
when  Keats  died,  when  the  first  version  of  De  Quincey's 
Opium-Eater  came  into  existence,  when  Scott  published 
Kenilivorth  and  The  Pirate,  and  Shelley  Adonais.  And  in 
cidentally  Bryant  was  for  a  full  half -century  at  the  head  of 
the  New  York  Evening  Post,  which  brought  him  the  rare 
reward  of  a  considerable  personal  fortune  earned  by  a 
newspaper  in  which  from  beginning  to  end  the  editor 
could  feel  honest  pride.  As  a  journalist,  indeed,  Bryant 
belongs  almost  to  our  own  time.  As  a  poet,  however, — 
and  it  is  as  a  poet  that  we  are  considering  him  here, — he 
belongs  to  the  earliest  period  of  American  letters. 

He  was  born,  the  son  of  a  country  doctor,  at  Gumming-  Life. 
ton,  a  small  town  of  Western  Massachusetts,  in  1 794.  At 
that  time  a  country  doctor,  though  generally  poor,  was, 
like  the  minister  and  the  squire,  an  educated  man,  and  a 
person  of  local  eminence;  and  Dr.  Bryant,  who  was  oc 
casionally  a  member  of  the  General  Court  at  Boston,  came 
to  have  a  considerable  acquaintance  among  the  better 


160        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

sort  of  people  in  Massachusetts.  The  son  was  extremely 
Precocity,  precocious.  When  he  was  only  thirteen  years  old,  verses 
of  his  were  printed  in  a  country  newspaper;  and  a  year 
later,  in  1808,  his  satire  on  President  Jefferson,  The  Em 
bargo,  was  brought  to  Boston  by  his  admiring  father  and 
actually  published.  The  only  particular  merit  of  this 

poem  is  accuracy  of  rhyme 
and  metre,  a  trait  which  Bry 
ant  preserved  until  the  end. 
For  a  year  or  so  the  boy  went 
to  Williams  College,  but  as 
his  father  was  too  poor  to 
keep  him  there,  he  soon  en 
tered  a  lawyer's  office.  Law, 
however,  proved  by  no  means 
congenial  to  him;  he  wanted 
to  be  a  man  of  letters.  In 
this  aspiration  his  father  sym 
pathized;  and  when  the  son 
was  twenty- three  years  of 
age,  the  father  took  to  Bos 
ton  a  collection  of  his  manu 
scripts,  among  which  was  "Thanatopsis,"  already  six 
years  old. 

These  manuscripts  Dr.  Bryant  submitted  to  Mr.  Wil- 
lard  Phillips,  one  of  the  three  editors  of  the  North  Ameri 
can  Review,  then  lately  founded.  Delighted  with  the 
verses,  Phillips  showed  them  to  his  colleagues,  Mr.  Richard 
Henry  Dana  and  Professor  Edward  Tyrrell  Channing. 
The  story  of  the  way  in  which  these  gentlemen  received 
the  poems  throws  light  on  the  condition  of  American  let 
ters  in  1817.  According  to  Mr.  Parke  Godwin  "they 


William  Cullen  Bryant  161 

listened  attentively  to  his  reading  of  them,  when  Dana,  at 
the  close,  remarked  with  a  quiet  smile:  'Ah!  Phillips,  you 
have  been  imposed  upon;  no  one  on  this  side  of  the  At 
lantic  is  capable  of  writing  such  verses.' "  Four  years  later, 
in  1821,  Bryant  delivered  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
Society  of  Harvard  College  his  longest  poem,  "The  Ages"; 
during  the  same  year  he  published  in  pamphlet  form 
eight  poems.  There  were  only  forty-four  pages  in  all; 
but  among  the  poems  were  both  "The  Waterfowl"  and 
"Thanatopsis."  The  life  of  a  country  lawyer  becoming 
more  and  more  distasteful  to  him,  he  determined  to  move 
to  town.  He  thought  seriously  of  going  to  Boston, — a  city 
with  which  at  that  time  his  affiliations  were  stronger  than 
with  any  other;  but  instead  he  cast  in  his  lot  with  New 
York,  to  which  he  finally  went  in  1825. 

At  that  time  Brockden  Brown  had  been  dead  for  fifteen 
years,  and  the  reputations  of  Irving  and  of  Cooper  were 
established.  At  that  time,  too,  there  was  in  New  York  a  New  York 
considerable  literary  activity  of  which  the  results  are  now  in  I8a5' 
pretty  generally  forgotten.*  Almost  the  only  survival  of 
New  York  poetry  before  Bryant  came  there,  indeed,  is 
Samuel  Woodworth's  accidentally  popular  "Old  Oaken 
Bucket."  The  name  of  JAMES  KIRKE  PAULDING  (1778- 
1860),  to  be  sure,  who  was  associated  with  Irving  in  Sal 
magundi,  and  who  subsequently  wrote  a  number  of  novels, 
and  other  prose,  is  still  faintly  remembered;  and  so  are  the 
names  rather  than  the  actual  work  of  two  poets,  JOSEPH 

*  Whoever  is  curious  to  know  something  about  it  may  well  compare 
Rufus  Wilmot  Griswold's  Poets  and  Poetry  of  America  (1842),  his  Prose      '/ 
Writers  of  America  (1847),  his  Female  Poets  of  America  (1849),  and 
E.  A.  and  G.  L.  Duyckinck's  Cyclopedia  of  American  Literature  (1855),     V 
with  Stedman  and  Hutchinson's  Library  of  American  Literature. 


162        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

RODMAN  DRAKE  (1795-1820)  and  FITZ-GREENE  HALLECK 
(1790-1867). 

Drake.  Drake  was  a  gentleman  and  a  man  of  taste.  He  wrote 

several  pretty  things,  among  them  a  poem  published  after 
his  death,  entitled  "The  Culprit  Fay  "  (1835).  This  con 
ventional  tale  of  some  tiny  fairies,  supposed  to  haunt  the 
Hudson  River,  is  so  much  better  than  American  poetry 
had  previously  been  that  one  is  at  first  disposed  to  speak 
of  it  enthusiastically.  An  obvious  comparison  puts  it  in 
true  perspective.  Drake's  life  happened  nearly  to  coincide 
with  that  of  Keats.  The  work  of  each  was  so  early  cut 
short  by  death,  that  it  sometimes  seems  only  an  indica 
tion  of  what  they  might  have  done;  and  the  contrast  be 
tween  these  indications  tells  afresh  the  story  of  American 
letters.  Keats,  amid  the  full  fervor  of  European  experi 
ence,  produced  immortal  verse ;  Drake,  whose  whole  life 
was  passed  amid  the  national  inexperience  of  New  York, 
produced  only  pretty  fancies. 

Haiieck.  Fitz-Greene  Halleck,  five  years  older,  survived  Drake 
by  forty-seven  years.  If  we  except  his  "  Marco  Bozzaris," 
however,  which  was  published  in  1825,  his  only  surviving 
lines  are  comprised  in  the  first  stanza  of  his  poem  on  the 
death  of  Drake,  written  in  1820: — 

"Green  be  the  turf  above  thee, 

Friend  of  my  better  days! 
None  knew  thee  but  to  love  thee 
Nor  named  thee  but  to  praise.' ' 

In  1811  Halleck  and  Drake  contributed  to  the  New 
York  Evening  Post  a  series  of  poetical  satires  entitled 
"The  Croaker  Papers;"  and  Halleck  published  a  mildly 
satirical  poem  entitled  Fanny.  In  1827  he  brought 
out  Alnwick  Castle,  and  Other  Poems.  In  1832  his 


William  Cullen  Bryant  163 

poetic  career  was  virtually  closed  by  his  acceptance  of  a 
clerical  position  in  the  employ  of  Mr.  John  Jacob  Astor. 
The  general  insignificance  of  New  York  letters  at  the  time 
when  Bryant  first  came  to  the  town  is  in  no  way  better 
typified  than  by  the  fact  that  literary  work  so  inconsid 
erable  as  Halleck's  has  been  deemed  worthy  of  a  bronze 
statue,  still  sitting  cross-legged  in  the  Mall  of  Central 
Park. 

Compared  with  such  work  as  this,  there  is  no  wonder  Evenness 
that  poems  like  " Thanatopsis "  and  "The  Waterfowl"  Bfryant.s 
seemed  to  the  early  editors  of  the  North  American  Review  Work, 
too  good  to  be  native;  and,  as  we  have  seen,  Bryant's  life 
and  activity  were  so  prolonged  that  it  is  hard  to  remember 
how  nearly  his  poetical  work  was  accomplished  at  the 
beginning  of  his  career.  It  was  not  all  produced  at  once, 
of  course;  but,  as  is  often  the  case  with  precocious  ex 
cellence, — with  men,  for  example,  like  his  contemporaries, 
Landor  and  Whittier, — even  though  he  rarely  fell  below 
his  own  first  level,  he  hardly  ever  surpassed  it.  This  is 
clearly  seen  if  we  compare  the  familiar  concluding  lines 
of  "Thanatopsis,"  published  before  he  was  twenty-seven, 
with  a  passage  of  about  equal  length  from  "Among  the 
Trees,"  published  after  he  was  seventy.  The  former 
lines  run  thus: — 

"So  live,  that  when  thy  summons  comes  to  join 
The  innumerable  caravan,  which  moves 
To  that  mysterious  realm,  where  each  shall  take 
His  chamber  in  the  silent  halls  of  death, 
Thou  go  not,  like  a  quarry-slave  at  night, 
Scourged  to  his  dungeon,  but,  sustained  and  soothed 
By  an  unfaltering  trust,  approach  thy  grave, 
Like  one  who  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams." 


164        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

The  latter  lines  are  these: — 

"Ye  have  no  history.     I  ask  in  vain 
Who  planted  on  the  slope  this  lofty  group 
Of  ancient  pear-trees  that  with  spring-time  burst 
Into  such  a  breadth  of  bloom.     One  bears  a  scar 
Where  the  quick  lightning  scorched  its  trunk,  yet  still 
It  feels  the  breath  of  Spring,  and  every  May 
Is  white  with  blossoms.     Who  it  was  that  laid 
Their  infant  roots  in  earth,  and  tenderly 
Cherished  the  delicate  sprays,  I  ask  in  vain, 
Yet  bless  the  unknown  hand  to  which  I  owe 
The  annual  festival  of  bees,  these  songs 
Of  birds  within  their  leafy  screen,  these  shouts 
Of  joy  from  children  gathering  up  the  fruit 
Shaken  in  August  from  the  willing  boughs. " 

The  former  of  these  passages  is  the  work  of  an  inexperi 
enced  country  boy;  the  latter,  by  the  same  hand,  is  the 
work  of  an  old  man  who  had  made  a  fortune  as  the  most 
successful  journalist  in  New  York;  but,  so  far  as  internal 
evidence  goes,  the  latter  might  almost  have  been  written 
Bryant's      first.     Beyond  doubt,  as  an  American  poet  Bryant  really 
contem-      belongs  to  the  generation  contemporary  with  Sir  Walter 

porary  with    Scott. 

In  the  year  of  Scott's  death,  indeed, — that  same  1832 
which  saw  in  England  the  passage  of  the  Reform  Bill  and 
in  America  the  Nullification  Act  of  South  Carolina  and 
President  Jackson's  Bank  Veto, — Bryant  had  already  been 
for  four  years  at  the  head  of  the  Evening  Post,  and  the  first 
considerable  edition  of  his  poems  appeared  both  in  Eng- 
"  land  and  in  America.  Nothing  which  he  wrote  later, 
except  perhaps  his  translations, — some  admirable  versions 
of  Spanish  lyrics,  which  are  said  to  have  attracted  many 
young  eyes  to  fascinating  romantic  vistas,  and  far  later 


William  Cullen  Bryant  165 

his  well-known  rendering  of    Homer — will    much  alter 
the  impression  produced  by  his  early  volume.     The  life 
long  evenness  of  his  work  seems  to  justify  reference  at  this 
point  to  what  he  wrote  about  poetry  many  years  later.     In 
1871,  as  editor  of  a  Library  of  Poetry  and  Song,  he  stated 
at  considerable  length  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  most  His  Theory 
important  qualities  of  lasting  poetry.     "The  best  poetry,"  ' 
he  says, — "that  which  takes  the  strongest  hold  on  the 
general  mind,  not  in  one  age  only  but  in  all  ages, — is  that 
which  is  always  simple  and  always  luminous." 

Simple  and  luminous  Bryant  was  from  beginning  to  end. 
For  this  simple  luminosity  he  paid  the  price  of  that  de-  His 
liberate  coolness  which  Lowell  thus  satirized  in  the  Fable  s 
for  Critics,  of  1848: — 

"There  is  Bryant,  as  quiet,  as  cool,  and  as  dignified, 
As  a  smooth,  silent  iceberg,  that  never  is  ignified, 
Save  when  by  reflection  't  is  kindled  o'  nights 
With  a  semblance  of  flame  by  the  chill  Northern  Lights. 
He  may  rank  (Griswold  says  so)  first  bard  of  your  nation 
(There's  no  doubt  that  he  stands  in  supreme  ice-olation), 
Your  topmost  Parnassus  he  may  set  his  heel  on, 
But  no  warm  applauses  come,  peal  following  peal  on, — • 
He's  too  smooth  and  too  polished  to  hang  any  zeal  on: 
Unqualified  merits,  I'll  grant,  if  you  choose,  he  has  'em, 
But  he  lacks  the  one  merit  of  kindling  enthusiasm; 
If  he  stir  you  at  all,  it  is  just,  on  my  soul, 
Like  being  stirred  up  with  the  very  North  Pole. " 

If  Bryant's  careful  attention  to  luminosity,  however,  pre 
vented  him  from  ever  being  passionate,  and  gave  his  work 
the  character  so  often  mistaken  for  commonplace,  it  never 
deprived  him  of  tender  delicacy.  Take,  for  example, 
"The  Death  of  the  Flowers,"  of  which  the  opening  line — 

"The  melancholy  days  are  come,  the  saddest  of  the  year" — 


166        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

is  among  his  most  familiar.    The  last  two  stanzas  run  as 
follows : — 

"And  now,  when  comes  the  calm  mild  day,  as  still  such  days  will 

come, 

To  call  the  squirrel  and  the  bee  from  out  their  winter  home; 
When  the  sound  of  dropping  nuts  is  heard,  though  all  the  trees  are 

still, 

And  twinkle  in  the  smoky  light  the  waters  of  the  rill, 
The  south  wind  searches  for  the  flowers  whose  fragrance  late  he 

bore, 
And  sighs  to  find  them  in  the  wood  and  by  the  stream  no  more. 

"And  then  I  think  of  one  who  in  her  youthful  beauty  died, 
The  fair  meek  blossom  that  grew  up  and  faded  by  my  side. 
In  the  cold  moist  earth  we  laid  her,  when  the  forest  cast  the  leaf, 
And  we  wept  that  one  so  lovely  should  have  a  life  so  brief; 
Yet  not  unmeet  it  was  that  one,  like  that  young  friend  of  ours, 
So  gentle  and  so  beautiful,  should  perish  with  the  flowers. " 

To  a  generation  familiar  with  all  the  extravagances  of 
nineteenth-century  romanticism,  a  feeling  so  deliberately 
restrained,  so  close  to  sentimentality,  may  well  seem  un- 
impassioned.  But  one  cannot  dwell  on  these  lines  with 
out  feeling  genuine  sweetness  of  temper,  or  without 
finally  discerning,  in  what  at  first  seems  chilly  deliberation 
of  phrase,  what  is  rather  a  loving  care  for  every  syllable. 

The  allusion  in  the  last  stanza  is  to  the  early  death  from 
consumption  of  Bryant's  sister.  Only  a  few  years  before 
his  father  had  died  of  the  same  disease.  So  he  had  per- 
HisMei-  sonal  reason  for  melancholy.  As  one  looks  through  his 
work,  however,  one  is  apt  to  wonder  whether,  even  if  his 
life  had  been  free  from  personal  bereavement,  his  verse 
might  not  still  have  hovered  sentimentally  about  the  dead. 
His  most  successful  poem,  "Thanatopsis,"  was  apparently 
written  before  death  had  often  come  near  him;  and  it  is 


William  Cullen  Bryant  167 

hardly  excessive  to  say  that  if  a  single  name  were  sought 
for  his  collected  works,  from  beginning  to  end,  a  version 
of  that  barbarous  Greek  title  might  be  found  suitable,  and 
the  whole  volume  fairly  entitled  "  Glimpses  of  the  Grave." 
Of  course  he  touched  on  other  things;  but  he  touched  on 
mortality  so  constantly  as  to  make  one  feel  regretfully  sure 
that  whenever  he  felt  stirred  to  poetry  his  fancy  started 
for  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death.  In  this,  of  course, 
he  was  not  peculiar.  The  subject  had  such  fascination 
for  eighteenth-century  versifiers  that  Blair  and  Young 
made  it  the  chief  motive  for  a  considerable  body  of 
verse,  and  in  1751  Gray's  Elegy  crowned  this  school  of 
poetry  with  an  undying  masterpiece.  This  underlying 
impulse  of  Bryant's  poetry,  we  thus  perceive,  was  general 
in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century;  yet  Bryant's  style, 
distinctly  affected  by  that  of  Cowper,  and  still  more  by 
that  of  Wordsworth,  clearly  belongs  to  the  nineteenth. 
Bryant  thus  reverses  the  relation  of  substance  to  style 
which  we  remarked  in  the  prose  of  his  contemporary, 
Irving.  Imbued  with  nineteenth-century  romantic  temper, 
Irving  wrote  in  the  classical  style  of  the  century  before; 
Bryant,  writing  in  the  simple,  luminous  style  of  his  own 
century,  expressed  a  somewhat  formal  sentimentality 
which  had  hardly  characterized  vital  work  in  England 
for  fifty  years. 

Such  was  the  eldest  of  our  nineteenth- century  poets,  Summary, 
the  first  whose  work  was  recognized  abroad.  He  has  never 
been  \videly  popular;  and  in  the  course  of  a  century  whose 
poetry  has  been  chiefly  marked  by  romantic  passion,  he 
has  tended  to  seem  more  and  more  commonplace.  But 
those  who  think  him  commonplace  forget  his  historical 
significance.  His  work  was  really  the  first  which  proved 


168        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

to  England  what  native  American  poetry  might  be.  The 
Old  World  was  looking  for  some  wild  manifestation  of  this 
new,  hardly  apprehended,  western  democracy.  Instead, 
what  it  found  in  Bryant,  the  one  poetic  contemporary  of 
Irving  and  Cooper  whose  writings  have  lasted,  was  fas 
tidious  over-refinement,  tender  sentimentality,  and  per 
vasive  luminosity.  Refinement,  in  short,  and  conscious 
refinement,  groups  Bryant  with  Irving,  with  Cooper,  and 
with  Brockden  Brown.  In  its  beginning  the  American 
literature  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  marked  rather 
by  delicacy  than  by  strength,  or  by  any  such  outburst  of 
previously  unphrased  emotion  as  on  general  principles 
democracy  might  have  been  expected  to  excite. 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Works,  ed.  Stedman  and  Woodberry,  10  vols.,  Chicago: 
Stone  and  Kimball,  1894-95;  Works  ("Virginia  Edition")  ed.  J.  A. 
Harrison,  17  vols.,  New  York:  Crowell,  1902. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  *G.  E.  Woodberry,  Edgar  Allan  Poe, 
Houghton,  1885  (AML);  J.  A.  Harrison,  Life  and  Letters  of  Edgar  Allan 
Poe,  2  vols.,  New  York:  Crowell,  1903;  *Stedman,  Poets  of  America, 
Chapter  vii;  L.  E.  Gates,  Studies  and  Appreciations,  New  York:  Mac- 
millan,  1900,  pp.  110-128. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Stedman  and  Woodberry,  X,  267-281;  J.  A.  Harri 
son's  Life,  I,  431-455. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  276-302;  Duyckinck,  II,  539-545;  Griswold, 
Poetry,  470-478;  Griswold,  Prose,  524-530;  Stedman,  144-151;  *Sted- 
man  and  Hutchinson,  VI,  429-469. 

IN  April,  1846,  EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  (1809-1849)  pub 
lished  in  Godey's  Lady's  Book  an  elaborate  article  on  Will 
iam  Cullen  Bryant.  In  the  six  following  numbers  of  the 
same  periodical,  appeared  that  series  of  comments  on  the 
literary  personages  of  the  day  which  were  collected  under 
the  name  of  the  Literati  (1850).  The  personal  career  of 
Poe  was  so  erratic  that  one  can  hardly  group  him  with 
any  definite  literary  school.  It  seems,  however,  more 
than  accidental  that  his  principal  critical  work  concerned 
the  contemporary  literature  of  New  York;  and  though 
he  was  born  in  Boston  and  passed  a  good  deal  of  his  life 
in  Virginia,  he  spent  his  literary  years  rather  more  in  New 
York  than  anywhere  else.  Accordingly  this  seems  the 
most  fitting  place  to  consider  him. 

169 


170        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 


From  the  beginning  his  career  was  erratic.  His  father, 
the  son  of  a  Revolutionary  soldier,  had  gone  wrong  and 
brought  up  on  the  stage;  his  mother  was  an  English  ac 
tress  of  whom  little  is  known.  The  pair,  who  chanced  to 
be  in  Boston  when  their  son  was  born,  died  when  he  was 
still  a  little  child.  At  the  age  of  two,  he  was  adopted  by 
a  gentleman  of  Richmond,  Virginia,  named  Allan,  who 

soon  took  him  to  Europe,  where 
he  remained  from  1815  to  1820. 
In  1826  he  was  for  a  year  at  the 
University  of  Virginia,  where  his 
career  was  brought  to  an  end 
by  a  gambling  scrape,  which  in 
turn  brought  almost  to  an  end 
his  relations  with  his  adopted 
father.  In  1827  his  first  verses 
were  published,  a  little  volume 
entitled  Tamerlane  and  Other 
Poems.  Then  he  drifted  into 
the  army,  and  a  temporary 
reconciliation  with  Mr.  Allan  got  him  into  the  Military 
Academy  at  West  Point,  from  which  in  1831  he  was 
dismissed.  After  that  he  always  lived  from  hand  to 
mouth,  supporting  himself  as  a  journalist  and  as  a  con 
tributor  to  numberless  periodicals  which  have  long  since 
disappeared.  His  Manuscript  Found  in  a  Bottle  (1833), 
procured  him  for  a  while  the  editorship  of  the  Southern 
Literary  Messenger,  published  at  Richmond  and  for  many 
years  the  most  successful  literary  periodical  of  the  South. 
In  1835  he  married  a  charming  but  penniless  girl,  a  rela 
tive  of  his  own.  In  1839  and  1840  he  edited  the  Gentle 
man's  Magazine  in  Philadelphia;  from  1840  to  1842  he 


Edgar  Allan  Poe  171 

edited  Graham' s  Magazine  in  New  York;  his  general 
career  was  that  of  a  literary  hack.  In  1847,  after  a  life 
of  distressing  poverty,  his  wife  died;  two  years  later  Poe 
himself  died  miserably. 

Born  fifteen  years  later  than  Bryant  and  dead  twenty- 
nine  years  earlier,  Poe,  now  more  than  fifty  years  in  his 
grave,  seems  to  belong  to  an  earlier  period  of  our  letters ; 
but  really,  as  we  have  seen,  Bryant's  principal  work  was 
done  before  1832.  At  that  time  Poe  had  published  only 
three  volumes  of  verse ;  his  lasting  prose  came  somewhat 
later;  in  fact,  the  permanent  work  of  Poe  may  be  said  to 
coincide  with  the  first  twelve  years  of  the  Victorian  epoch. 
In  1838,  the  year  of  Arthur  Gordon  Pym,  Dickens  was  at  Poe's 
work  on  Oliver  Twist  and  Nicholas  Nickleby ;  and  Carlyle's  contem- 
French  Revolution  was  a  new  book.  In  1849,  when  Poe  ponies, 
died,  Thackeray's  Vanity  Fair  and  the  first  two  volumes 
of  Macaulay's  History  had  lately  appeared;  Dickens  was 
publishing  David  Copperfield,  and  Thackeray  Pendennis; 
and  Ruskin  brought  out  his  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture. 
Had  Poe  survived  to  Bryant's  years,  he  would  have  out 
lived  not  only  Bryant  himself  but  Emerson  and  Hawthorne 
and  Longfellow  and  Lowell,  and  indeed  almost  every  lit 
erary  contemporary  except  Holmes. 

The  very  mention  of  these  names  is  enough  to  call  to 
mind  a  distinction  between  the  career  of  Poe  and  that  of 
almost  every  other  American  whose  literary  reputation 
has  survived  from  the  days  when  he  was  writing.  The 
men  on  whom  we  have  already  touched  were  personally  of 
the  better  sort,  either  by  birth  or  by  achieved  position.  So 
in  general  were  the  chief  men  of  letters  who  made  the 
Renaissance  of  New  England  the  most  important  fact  in 
American  literary  history.  Poe,  on  the  other  hand,  was 


172        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

always  a  waif  and  a  stray,  essentially  a  Bohemian.  There 
was  in  his  nature  something  which  made  futile  the  effort 
of  that  benevolent  Virginian  gentleman  to  adopt  him  into 
the  gentler  classes  of  America.  In  his  lifetime,  there  can 
be  little  doubt,  Poe  must  consequently  have  seemed  per 
sonally  inferior  to  most  of  his  eminent  contemporaries  in 
American  letters.  Yet  now  that  all  are  dead,  he  begins 
to  seem  quite  as  important  as  any. 

The  historical  position  of  Poe  in  American  letters  can 
be  seen  by  glancing  at  his  already  mentioned  papers,  the 
Literati.  It  is  worth  while  to  name  the  thirty-eight  per 
sons,  then  mostly  living  in  New  York  and  certainly  con 
tributing  to  the  New  York  periodicals  of  the  moment, 
whom  Poe  thought  considerable  and  interesting  enough 
for  notice.  Here  is  the  list:  George  Bush,  George  H. 
Colton,  N.  P.  Willis,  William  M.  Gillespie,  Charles  F. 
Briggs,  William  Kirkland,  John  W.  Francis,  Anna  Cora 
Mowatt,  George  B.  Cheever,  Charles  Anthon,  Ralph  Hoyt, 
Gulian  C.  Verplanck,  Freeman  Hunt,  Piero  Maroncelli, 
Laughton  Osborn,  Fitz-Greene  Halleck,  Ann  S.  Stephens, 
Evert  A.  Duyckinck,  Mary  Gove,  James  Aldrich,  Thomas 
Dunn  Brown,  Henry  Gary,  Christopher  Pearse  Cranch, 
Sarah  Margaret  Fuller,  James  Lawson,  Caroline  M.  Kirk- 
land,  Prosper  M.  Wetmore,  Emma  C.  Embury,  Epes 
Sargent,  Frances  Sargent  Osgood,  Lydia  M.  Child,  Eliza 
beth  Bogart,  Catherine  M.  Sedgwick,  Lewis  Gaylord 
Clark,  Anne  C.  Lynch,  Charles  Fenno  Hoffman,  Mary  E. 
Hewitt,  and  Richard  Adams  Locke.  In  this  list  there  is 
one  name  which  we  have  already  found  worthy  of  a  glance, 
— that  of  Fitz-Greene  Halleck.  There  is  another  which 
we  have  mentioned  in  notes, — that  of  Evert  A.  Duyckinck. 
There  are  two  at  which  we  shall  certainly  glance  later, — 


Edgar  Allan  Poe  173 

those  of  N.  P.  Willis  and  Sarah  Margaret  Fuller.  And 
there  are  two  or  three  which  we  may  mention, — those  of 
Mrs.  Child,  of  Lewis  Gaylord  Clark,  and  of  Charles  Fenno 
Hoffman.  The  very  names  of  the  other  "Literati"  are 
generally  forgotten. 

Our  chief  reason  for  recalling  them  is  not  to  remind 
ourselves  of  what  they  happened  to  be  publishing  when 
Poe's  best  work  was  done;  it  is  rather  to  point  out  why  a 
considerable  part  of  Poe's  best  work  has  itself  been  for 
gotten.  His  critical  writings  *  are  the  only  ones  in  which  other 
he  shows  how  he  could  deal  with  actual  fact ;  and  in  deal- 
ing  with  actual  fact  he  proved  himself  able.  Though 
some  of  the  facts  he  dealt  with,  however,  were  worthy  of 
his  pen, — he  was  among  the  first,  for  example,  to  recognize 
the  merit  of  Tennyson  and  of  Mrs.  Browning, — most  of 
them  in  the  course  of  fifty  years  have  proved  insignificant. 
For  all  this,  they  existed  at  the  moment.  Poe  was  a  jour 
nalist,  who  had  to  write  about  what  was  in  the  air;  and  he 
wrote  about  it  so  well  that  in  certain  aspects  this  critical 
work  seems  his  best.  He  dabbled  a  little  in  philosophy, 
of  course,  particularly  on  the  aesthetic  side;  but  he  had 
neither  the  spiritual  insight  which  must  underlie  serious 
philosophizing,  nor  the  scholarly  training  which  must 
precede  lasting,  solid  thought.  What  he  did  possess  to  a 
rare  degree  was  the  temper  of  an  enthusiastic  artist,  who 
genuinely  enjoyed  and  welcomed  whatever  in  his  own  art, 
poetry,  he  found  meritorious.  He  dealt  with  questions  of 
fine  art  in  a  spirit  which  if  sometimes  narrow,  often  dog 
matic,  and  never  scholarly,  is  sincere,  fearless,  and  gen 
erally  eager  in  its  impulsive  recognition  of  merit. 

Take,  for  example,  a  stray  passage  from  the  Literati, — 

*  Collected  in  Vols.  VI-VIII  of  Stedman  and  Woodberry's  edition. 


174        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

his  enthusiastic  criticism  of  Mrs.  Frances  Sargent  Osgood, 
a  lady  whose  work  never  fulfilled  the  promise  which  Poe 
discerned  in  it: — 

"Whatever  be  her  theme,  she  at  once  extorts  from  it  its  whole 
essentiality  of  grace.  Fanny  Ellsler  has  been  often  lauded;  true 
poets  have  sung  her  praises;  but  we  look  in  vain  for  anything  written 
about  her,  which  so  distinctly  and  vividly  paints  her  to  the  eye  as  the 
.  .  .  quatrains  which  follow: — 

"'She  comes — the  spirit  of  the  dance! 

And  but  for  those  large  eloquent  eyes, 
Where  passion  speaks  in  every  glance, 
She'd  seem  a  wanderer  from  the  skies. 

'"So  light  that,  gazing  breathless  there, 
Lest  the  celestial  dream  should  go, 
You'd  think  the  music  in  the  air 
Waved  the  fair  vision  to  and  }ro; 

"'Or  that  the  melody's  sweet  flow 

Within  the  radiant  creature  played, 
And  those  soft  wreathing  arms  of  snow 
And  white  sylph  feet  the  music  made. ' 

"This  is,  indeed,  poetry — and  of  the  most  unquestionable  kind — 
poetry  truthful  in  the  proper  sense — that  is  to  say,  breathing  of 
Nature.  There  is  here  nothing  forced  or  artificial — no  hardly  sus 
tained  enthusiasm.  The  poetess  speaks  because  she  feels,  and  what 
she  feels;  but  then  what  she  feels  is  felt  only  by  the  truly  poetical."* 

This  passage  deserves  our  attention  both  as  containing 
an  unusually  good  fragment  of  the  long-forgotten  poetry 
produced  in  Poe's  New  York,  and  as  indicating  the 
temper  in  which  Poe  approached  contemporary  litera 
ture.  To  his  mind  the  only  business  of  a  poet  was  to  make 

*  Stedman  and  Woodberry's  edition,  VIII,  104-106.  The  italics 
are  Poe's. 


Edgar  Allan  Poe  175 

things  of  beauty.  If  in  what  professed  to  be  poetry  he 
found  ugly  things,  he  unhesitatingly  condemned  them; 
if  he  found  anything  which  seemed  beautiful,  nobody 
could  welcome  it  more  eagerly.  Poe  really  loved  his  art; 
and  whatever  his  lack  of  training,  he  had  a  natural,  in 
stinctive,  eager  perception  of  beauty.  This,  too,  he  set 
forth  in  a  style  always  simple  and  clear,  always  free  from 
affectation  or  mannerism,  and  always  marked  by  a  fine 
sense  of  rhythm.  All  these  merits  appear  saliently  in 
those  portions  of  his  work  which  deal  with  actual  fact. 

His  philosophical  writings  seem  more  suspicious.  As 
a  journalist  Poe  sometimes  deliberately  hoaxed  the  public ; 
and  when  you  read  such  papers  as  his  "Poetic  Principle," 
his  "Rationale  of  Verse,"  or  his  "Philosophy  of  Composi 
tion,"  it  is  hard  to  feel  sure  that  he  is  not  gravely  hoaxing 
you.  On  the  whole,  he  probably  was  not.  In  his  work  of 
this  kind  one  feels  intense  ingenuity,  total  lack  of  scholar 
ship,  and  a  temper  far  from  judicial.  The  traits  which 
make  Poe's  occasional  criticisms  excellent — swiftness  of 
perception  and  fineness  of  taste — are  matters  not  of  train 
ing  but  of  temperament. 

Temperament,  indeed,  of  a  markedly  individual  kind  is  Tales  and 
what  gives  lasting  character  and  vitality  to  the  tales  and 
the  poems  by  which  he  has  become  permanently  known. 
Both  alike  are  instantly  to  be  distinguished  from  the  criti 
cal  work  at  which  we  have  glanced  by  the  fact  that  they 
never  deal  with  things  which  he  believed  actually  to  exist, 
whether  in  this  world  or  in  the  next.  Poe's  individual  and 
powerful  style,  to  be  sure,  full  of  what  seems  like  vivid 
ness,  constantly  produces  "that  willing  suspension  of  dis 
belief  for  the  moment  which  constitutes  poetic  faith;"  but 
the  futile  attempts  to  illustrate  his  work  prove  that  fictions 


176        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

even  so  vivid  as  Usher  and  the  Lady  Madeline  and  the 
unearthly  house  of  their  doom  are  things  which  no  one  can 
translate  into  visual  terms  without  demonstrating  their 
unreality.  Yet,  for  all  this  unreality,  there  hovers  around 
them  a  mood,  a  temper,  an  impalpable  but  unmistakable 
quality,  which  could  hardly  have  emanated  from  any 
other  human  being  than  Edgar  Allan  Poe. 

This  individuality  is  hard  to  define.  One  or  two 
things  about  it,  however,  seem  clear.  In  tales  and  poems 
alike  he  is  most  characteristic  when  dealing  with  mys 
teries  ;  and  though  to  a  certain  point  these  mysteries,  often 
horrible,  are  genuinely  mysterious,  they  reveal  no  trace  of 
spiritual  insight,  no  sense  of  the  eternities  which  lie  be 
yond  human  perception.  Excellent  in  their  way,  one 
cannot  but  feel  them  to  be  melodramatic.  From  begin 
ning  to  end  Poe  had  that  inextricable  combination  of 
meretriciousness  and  sincerity  which  marks  the  tempera 
ment  of  actors  in  general. 

Yet  genius  he  certainly  had,  and  to  no  small  degree  in 
that  excellent  form  which  has  been  described  as  "an  in 
finite  capacity  for  taking  pains."  In  his  tales,  now  of 
melodramatic  mystery,  again  of  elaborate  ingenuity,  one 
feels  not  only  his  constant  power  of  imagination,  one  feels 
also  masterly  precision  of  touch.  As  you  read  over  and 
over  again  both  Poe's  verse  and  his  prose,  particularly  if 
you  read  aloud,  you  will  feel  more  and  more  that  almost 
every  vowel,  every  consonant,  and  more  surely  still  every 
turn  of  the  rhythm  which  places  the  accent  so  definitely 
where  the  writer  means  it  to  fall,  indicates  not  only  a 
rare  sense  of  form,  but  a  still  more  rare  power  of 
expression. 

They  indicate  more  than  this,  too.    Whether  the  things 


Edgar  Allan  Poe  177 

which  Poe  wished  to  express  were  worth  his  pains  is  not 
the  question.  He  knew  what  they  were,  and  he  unfeign- 
edly  wished  to  express  them.  He  had  almost  in  perfection 
a  power  more  frequently  shown  by  skilful  melodramatic 
actors  than  by  men  of  letters, — the  power  of  assuming  an 
intensely  unreal  mood  and  of  so  setting  it  forth  as  to  make 
us  for  the  moment  share  it  unresistingly.  This  power  one 
feels  perhaps  most  palpably  in  the  peculiar  melody  of  his 
verse.  The  " Haunted  Palace"  may  be  stagey,  but  there 
is  something  in  its  lyric  quality — that  quality  whereby 
poetry  impalpably  but  unmistakably  performs  the  office 
best  performed  by  pure  music — which  throws  a  reader  into 
a  mood  almost  too  subtle  for  words. 

In  the  strenuousness  of  Poe's  artistic  conscience  we 
found  a  trait  more  characteristic  of  America  than  of  Eng 
land, — a  trait  which  is  perhaps  involved  in  the  national 
self -consciousness  of  our  country.  His  general  purity  of 
feeling,  which  might  hardly  have  been  expected  from  the 
circumstances  of  his  personal  career,  is  equally  charac 
teristic  of  his  America.  It  is  allied,  perhaps,  with  that 
freedom  from  actuality  which  we  have  seen  to  characterize 
his  most  apparently  vivid  work.  The  world  which  bred 
Poe  was  a  world  whose  national  life  was  still  inexperienced. 

Intensely  individual,  and  paradoxically  sincere,  Poe  Summary, 
set  forth  a  peculiar  range  of  mysterious  though  not 
significant  emotion.  In  the  fact  that  this  emotion,  even 
though  insignificant,  was  mysterious,  is  a  trait  which  we 
begin  to  recognize  as  characteristically  American,  at  least 
at  that  moment  when  American  life  meant  something  else 
than  wide  human  experience.  There  is  something  char 
acteristically  American,  too,  in  the  fact  that  Poe's  work 
gains  its  effect  from  artistic  conscience,  an  ever  present 


178        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

sense  of  form.  Finally,  there  is  something  characteris 
tically  American  in  Poe's  instinctive  delicacy.  Poe's  chief 
merits,  in  brief,  prove  merits  of  refinement.  Even 
through  a  time  so  recent  as  his,  refinement  of  temper, 
conscientious  sense  of  form,  and  instinctive  neglect  of 
actual  fact  remained  the  most  characteristic  traits,  if  not 
of  American  life,  at  least  of  American  letters. 


VI 

THE  KNICKERBOCKER  SCHOOL 

REFERENCES 
THE  KNICKERBOCKER  SCHOOL 

WORKS:  The  Knickerbocker;  or  New  York  Monthly  Magazine,  60  vols., 
New  York,  1833-62;  The  Knickerbocker  Gallery:  A  Testimonial  to  the 
Editor  of  the  Knickerbocker  Magazine  from  its  Contributors,  New  York: 
Hueston,  1855. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  Duyckinck  and  Griswold,  passim.  The 
Knickerbockers,  by  Henry  van  Dyke,  is  announced  in  the  series  of 
"National  Studies  in  American  Letters "  (New  York:  Macmillan). 

SELECTIONS:  As  above;  also  Stedman  and  Hutchinson  (see  Index, 
Vol.  XI,  under  the  various  names). 

WILLIS 

WORKS:  No  complete  edition.  "The  thirteen  volumes  in  uniform  style, 
issued  by  Charles  Scribner  from  1849  to  1859,  form  as  nearly  a  complete 
edition  of  Willis's  prose  since  1846  as  is  ever  likely  to  be  made"  (Beers, 
Willis,  p.  353).  There  is  a  complete  edition  of  Willis's  Poems,  New  York: 
Clark  &  Maynard,  1868.  A  very  convenient  volume  of  selections  is  the 
Prose  Writings  of  Nathaniel  Parker  Willis,  edited  by  H.  A.  Beers,  New 
York:  Scribner,  1885. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  H.  A.  Beers,  Nathaniel  Parker  Willis, 
Boston:  Houghton,  1885  (AML). 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  322-325;  *Beers,  Willis,  353-356. 

SELECTIONS:  Duyckinck,  II,  440-443;  Griswold,  Prose,  485-494;  Gris 
wold,  Poetry,  372-378;  Stedman,  102-106;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson, 
VI,  256-269. 

IN  the  course  of  our  glances  at  Poe  we  had  occasion  to 
recognize  the  existence  of  an  extensive,  though  now  for 
gotten,  periodical  literature, — Godey's  Lady's  Book,  The 

179 


180        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

Southern  Literary  Messenger,  Graham's  Magazine,  and  the 
like, — which  carried  on  the  impulse  toward  periodical 
publication  already  evident  in  the  time  of  Brockden  Brown. 
Throughout  the  older  regions  of  America  such  things 
sprang  up,  flourished  for  a  little  while,  and  withered,  in 
weed-like  profusion.  So  far  as  these  periodicals  were 
literary,  they  were  intensely  conventional  and  sentimental. 
In  brief,  they  are  another  proof  of  what  inevitable  waste 
must  accompany  any  period  of  artistic  achievement. 

In  1833  there  was  founded  in  New  York  the  magazine 
in  which  this  phase  of  literary  activity  may  be  said  to 
have  culminated.  The  Knickerbocker  thus  deserves  more 
attention  than  its  positive  merit  would  warrant.  It  was 
founded  the  year  after  Bryant  brought  out  the  first  consid 
erable  collection  of  his  poems, — that  1832  which  was 
marked  in  English  history  by  the  Reform  Bill  and  in  Eng 
lish  literature  by  the  death  of  Scott.  The  chief  founder 
of  the  Knickerbocker  was  CHARLES  FENNO  HOFFMAN 
(1806-1884),  a  gentleman  of  New  York  whom  Poe  re 
corded  among  the  Literati  of  1846,  who  published  a  num 
ber  of  novels  and  poems,  and  whose  career  sadly  closed 
with  an  insanity  which,  bdginning  in  1849,  kept  him  for  a 
full  thirty-five  years  in  the  seclusion  where  he  died.  Dur 
ing  its  thirty  years  or  so  of  existence  the  Knickerbocker 
became  not  only  the  most  conspicuous,  but  also  the  oldest 
periodical  of  its  class  in  the  United  States.  Though  Poe's 
Literati  were  not  all  contributors  to  it,  their  names  fairly 
typify  the  general  character  of  its  staff,  toward  the  end  of 
the  '403. 

In  1854  its  editor  was  Lewis  Gaylord  Clark.  As  the 
twenty- fifth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of  the  magazine 
was  approaching,  it  was  proposed  that  "the  surviving 


The  Knickerbocker  School  181 

writers  for  the  Knickerbocker  should  each  furnish, 
gratuitously,  an  article,  and  that  the  collection  should  be 
published  in  a  volume  of  tasteful  elegance,  of  which  the 
entire  proceeds  should  be  devoted  to  the  building,  on  the 
margin  of  the  Hudson,  of  a  cottage,  suitable  for  the 
home  of  a  man  of  letters,  who,  like  Mr.  Clark,  is 
also  a  lover  of  rural  life."  The  book,  which  is  entitled 
the  Knickerbocker  Gallery,  was  published  early  in  1855. 

To  it  Irving  contributed  some  notes  from  a  common-  The 
place  book  of  the  year  1821.  Bryant  sent  some  verses  on 
"A  Snow  Shower";  and  Halleck  a  poetical  "Epistle  to  Gallery 
Clark."  There  are  also  contributions  from  New  England : 
Holmes  sent  a  four- page  poem  entitled  "A  Vision  of  the 
Housatonic";  Fields  sent  an  "Invitation  to  our  Cottage 
Home,"  in  sixteen  lines  of  innocent  blank  verse;  Long 
fellow  contributed  a  poem,  "The  Emperor's  Bird's-Nest"; 
and  Lowell  sent  his  verse  on  "Masaccio  in  the  Brancacci 
Chapel"  at  Florence.  The  other  contributors,  mostly 
either  resident  in  New  York  or  closely  associated  with  that 
city,  may  be  taken  as  fairly  typical  of  that  phase  in  the 
letters  of  New  York  which  has  sometimes  been  called  the 
Knickerbocker  School.  Some  of  their  names  have  sur 
vived;  those,  for  example,  of  George  Henry  Boker,  of 
Bayard  Taylor,  of  John  G.  Saxe,  of  Henry  Theodore 
Tuckerman,  of  George  William  Curtis,  and — an  unex 
pected  person  to  find  in  such  company — of  William  H. 
Seward.  But  of  all  the  names  in  the  book,  the  most  char 
acteristic  of  the  period  is  NATHANIEL  PARKER  WILLIS 
(1806-1867). 

Willis  was  born  at  Portland,  Maine,  where  his  father,  a  wniis. 
professional  journalist,  was  an  ardent  member  of  the  old 
Congregational  communion  to  which  the  dialect  of  New 


182        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 


England  long  gave  the  name  of  "orthodox."  When  the 
son  was  a  mere  boy,  the  father  removed  to  Boston,  and 
then  became  a  deacon  in  the  Park  Street  Church,  perhaps 
the  most  rigidly  orthodox  of  all  the  Boston  churches. 
Life  as  the  son  of  a  Calvinistic  deacon  in  the  Unitarian 
city  was  so  little  to  young  Willis's  taste  that,  after  he  had 
graduated  from  Andover  and  Yale  and  had  tried  maga 

zine  work  in  Boston  with  small 
success,  he  was  glad  to  go  to 
New  York  in  the  summer  of 
1831. 

In  the  autumn  of  1831  he  be 
came  associated  with  GEORGE 
P.  MORRIS  (1802-1864),  —  now 
remembered  only  as  the  author 
of  a  once  popular  sentimental 
poem  beginning  "Woodman, 
spare  that  tree,"  —  in  the  con 
duct  of  a  periodical  called  the 
New  York  Mirror.  Between 
them  they  hit  upon  a  plan  of 
sending  Willis  abroad,  from 

whence  he  should  write  regular  European  letters  ;  so  to  Eu 
rope  he  went  at  the  age  of  twenty-five.  There  he  was  made 
much  of  by  important  people,  and  his  letters  to  the  New 
York  Minor  related  his  social  experiences  with  what  was 
sometimes  held  undue  detail.  In  1846,  having  returned 
to  America,  Willis  started  the  Home  Journal  and,  like 
Irving,  retired  to  a  country-place  on  the  banks  of  the 
Hudson  River. 

In  Willis's  palmy  days,  he  was  the  most  popular  Ameri 
can  writer  out  of  New  England.     He  dashed  off  all  sorts 


-^- 


The  Knickerbocker  School  183 

of  things  with  great  ease, — not  only  such  descriptions  of 
life  and  people  as  formed  the  staple  of  his  contributions 
to  the  Mirror,  but  poems  and  stories,  and  whatever  else 
belongs  to  occasional  periodical  writing.  Throughout, 
his  prose  style  had  a  rather  provoking  kind  of  jaunty 
triviality. 

Work  so  slight  may  seem  hardly  worth  emphasis.  As 
time  passes,  however,  Willis  appears  more  and  more  the 
most  characteristic  New  York  man  of  letters  between  1832 
and  the  Civil  War, — the  most  typical  of  the  school  which 
flourished  throughout  the  career  of  the  Knickerbocker  insignifi- 
magazine.  The  earlier  writers  whom  we  have  considered  wmis'°s 
were  all  imitative,  or  at  least  their  work  seems  reminiscent.  Work- 
Brockden  Brown  is  reminiscent  of  Godwin,  Irving  of  Gold 
smith,  Cooper  of  Scott,  Bryant  of  Cowper  and  Wordsworth, 
and  so  on.  In  a  similar  way  Willis  may  be  said  to  remind 
one  of  Leigh  Hunt,  and  perhaps  here  and  there  of  Ben 
jamin  Disraeli,  and  Bulwer.  The  contrast  of  these  last 
names  with  those  of  the  earlier  models  tells  the  story.  As 
men  of  letters,  Godwin  and  Goldsmith  and  Scott  and 
Cowper  and  Wordsworth  are  distinctly  more  serious 
than  Bulwer  and  Disraeli  and  Leigh  Hunt.  The  merits 
of  the  former  group  are  solid;  those  of  the  latter  are  too 
slight  to  bear  dilution.  As  a  descriptive  journalist,  Willis 
is  still  worth  reading.  His  letters  from  abroad  give 
pleasant  and  vivid  pictures  of  European  life  in  the  '305; 
his  Letters  from  Under  a  Bridge  give  pleasant  pictures 
of  country  life  in  our  Middle  States  a  little  later;  but 
when  it  comes  to  anything  like  literature,  one  can  hardly 
avoid  the  conviction  that  he  had  little  to  say. 

In  the  work  of  the  earlier  New  York  school,  and  even  in 
the  work  of  Poe,  we  have  already  remarked,  nothing  was 


184        Literature  in  the  Middle  States 

produced  which  profoundly  concerned  either  the  eter 
nities  or  the  practical  conduct  of  life.  The  literature  of 
Brockden  Brown,  of  Irving,  of  Cooper,  and  of  Poe  is  only 
a  literature  of  pleasure,  possessing,  so  far  as  it  has  excel 
lence  at  all,  only  the  excellence  of  conscientious  refine 
ment.  Willis,  too,  so  far  as  his  work  may  be  called  litera 
ture,  made  nothing  higher  than  literature  of  pleasure;  and 
for  all  the  bravery  with  which  he  worked  throughout  his 
later  life,  one  cannot  help  feeling  in  his  writings,  as  well 
as  in  some  of  the  social  records  of  his  earlier  years,  a  pal 
pable  falsity  of  taste.  He  was  a  man  of  far  wider  social 
experience  than  Bryant  or  Cooper,  probably  indeed  than 
Irving  himself.  Yet,  after  all,  one  feels  in  him  rather 
the  quality  of  a  dashing  adventurer,  of  an  amiable,  honora 
ble  Bohemian,  than  such  secure  sense  of  personal  dignity 
as  marked  Bryant  and  Irving  and  their  contemporaries 
in  New  England.  A  school  of  letters  in  which  a  man  of 
Willis's  quality  could  attain  the  eminence  which  for  years 
made  him  conspicuous  was  certainly  declining. 

In  brief,  this  school,  which  began  in  1 798  with  the  work 
of  Brockden  Brown  and  persisted  throughout  the  life 
time  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  the  writings  of  Irving,  of  Cooper, 
and  of  Bryant,  never  dealt  with  deeply  significant  matters. 
Almost  from  the  time  when  Bryant  first  collected  his  poems, 
the  literature  made  in  New  York  and  under  its  influence 
became  less  and  less  important.  New  York  newspapers, 
to  be  sure,  of  which  the  best  examples  are  the  Evening 
Post  and  the  Tribune,  were  steadily  gaining  in  merit  and 
influence;  but  literature  pure  and  simple  was  not.  If  we 
may  hold  Poe  to  have  belonged  to  the  general  phase  of 
American  literary  activity  which  we  have  been  consider 
ing, — the  only  phase  which  during  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 


The  Knickerbocker  School  185 

teenth  century  developed  itself  outside  of  New  England, — 
we  may  say  that  this  literary  activity  reached  its  acme  in 
the  work  of  Poe,  itself  for  all  its  merit  not  deeply  significant. 
And  even  in  Poe's  time,  and  still  more  surely  a  little  later, 
the  literature  of  which  he  proves  the  most  important  mas 
ter  declined  into  such  good-humored  trivialities  as  one 
finds  in  the  Knickerbocker  Gallery  and  in  the  life  and  work 
of  Willis.  By  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
literary  impulse  of  the  Middle  States  had  proved  abortive. 
For  the  serious  literature  of  America  we  must  turn  to  New 
England. 


BOOK    V 

THE    RENAISSANCE    OF    NEW 
ENGLAND 


BOOK    V 

THE    RENAISSANCE    OF    NEW 
ENGLAND 


SOME  GENERAL   CHARACTERISTICS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

REFERENCES 

EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE:  On  the  history  of  New  England,  see  the 
references  at  the  head  of  Chapter  iii  of  Book  I  and  Chapter  iii  of 
Book  II;  many  of  these  references  concern  New  England  life  and  man 
ners.  See  also,  on  colonial  and  provincial  life,  J.R.Lowell,  "New  Eng 
land  Two  Centuries  Ago  "  (Wks.,  Riverside  Edition,  I);  W.  B.  Weeden, 
Economic  and  Social  History  of  New  England,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton, 
1890;  H.  C.  Lodge,  A  Short  History  of  the  English  Colonies  in  America, 
New  York:  Harper,  1881,  especially  Chapter  xxii;  and  the  various 
books  by  Mrs.  Alice  Morse  Earle. 

LATER  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE:  H.  B.  Stowe,  Oldtown  Folks,  Boston, 
1869;  Whittier,  Snow-Bound;  Lowell,  "Cambridge  Thirty  Years  Ago" 
(Wks.,  Riverside  Edition,  I,  43-99).  E.  E.  Hale,  A  New  England  Boyhood 
(Wks.,  Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1898-1901,  VI,  1-208);  and  the 
various  writings  of  Sarah  Orne  Jewett  and  Mary  Wilkins. 

FROM  the  time,  shortly  after  1720,  when  Franklin  left 
Boston,  where  Increase  and  Cotton  Mather  were  still 
preaching,  we  have  paid  little  attention  to  that  part  of  the 
country.  For  during  the  seventy-two  years  which  inter 
vened  between  Cotton  Mather's  death  and  the  nineteenth 
century,  Boston  was  of  less  literary  importance  than  it 

189 


190      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

was  before  or  than  it  has  been  since.  To  understand  its 
revival,  we  must  call  to  mind  a  little  more  particularly 
some  general  characteristics  of  New  England. 

Boston,  whose  geographical  position  has  made  it  the 
principal  city  of  that  region,  may  be  distinguished  from 
most  American  cities  by  the  fact  that,  comparatively  speak 
ing,  it  is  not  on  the  way  anywhere.  The  main  lines  of 
travel  from  abroad  to-day  come  to  the  port  of  New  York. 
People  bound  thence  for  Washington  proceed  through 
Philadelphia  and  Baltimore;  people  bound  westward  are 
pretty  sure  to  trend  toward  Chicago ;  people  going  south 
west  pass  through  St.  Louis  or  New  Orleans;  people 
going  around  the  world  generally  sail  from  San  Francisco; 
but  the  only  people  who  are  apt  to  make  the  excursion  from 
New  York  to  Boston  are  those  who  do  so  for  that  purpose. 
Of  course,  the  ease  of  intercommunication  nowadays  com 
bines  with  several  other  causes  to  disguise  this  isolation 
of  the  capital  city  of  New  England.  All  the  same,  isola 
tion  really  characterizes  not  only  the  city,  but  the  whole 
region  of  which  it  is  the  natural  centre. 

This  physical  isolation  was  somewhat  less  pronounced 
when  the  English-speaking  settlements  in  America  were 
confined  to  the  fringe  of  colonies  along  the  Atlantic  sea 
board.  Even  then,  however,  a  man  proceeding  by  land 
from  Boston  to  Philadelphia  had  to  pass  through  New 
York;  and  so  one  proceeding  from  New  York  to  Virginia 
or  the  Carolinas  had  to  pass  through  Philadelphia;  but 
the  only  people  who  needed  to  visit  Boston  were  people 
bound  thither.  It  had  happened,  meanwhile,  that  the 
regions  of  Eastern  Massachusetts,  although  not  literally 
the  first  American  colonies  to  be  settled,  were  probably 
the  first  to  be  politically  and  socially  developed.  SewalPs 


Some  General  Characteristics          191 

diary,  for  example,  an  artless  record  of  busy  life  in  and 
about  Boston  from  1674  to  1729,  has  few  more  remarkable 
traits  than  the  fact  that  the  surroundings  and  in  many 
respects  the  society  which  it  represents  are  hardly  yet 
unfamiliar  to  people  born  and  bred  in  Eastern  New  Eng 
land. 

In  the  first  place,  the  whole  country  from  the  Piscataqua  Homo- 
to  Cape  Cod,  and  westward  to  the  Connecticut  River, 
was  almost  as  settled  as  it  is  to-day.  Many  towns  of 
SewalPs  time,  to  be  sure,  have  been  divided  into  smaller 
ones;  but  the  name  and  the  local  organization  of  almost 
every  town  of  his  time  still  persist;  in  two  hundred  years 
the  municipal  outlines  of  Massachusetts  have  undergone 
hardly  more  change  than  any  equal  space  of  England  or 
of  France.  In  SewalPs  time,  again,  the  population  of 
this  region,  though  somewhat  different  from  that  which  at 
present  exists,  was  much  like  that  which  was  lately  familiar 
to  anybody  who  can  remember  the  New  England  country 
in  1860.  It  was  homogeneous,  and  so  generally  native 
that  any  inhabitants  but  born  Yankees  attracted  atten 
tion;  and  the  separate  towns  were  so  distinct  that  any 
one  who  knew  much  of  the  country  could  probably 
infer  from  a  man's  name  just  where  he  came  from.  So 
isolated  a  region,  with  so  indigenous  a  population,  natu 
rally  developed  a  pretty  rigid  social  system. 

Tradition  has  long  supposed  this  system  to  have  been 
extremely  democratic,  as  in  some  superficial  aspect  it  was. 
The  popular  forms  of  local  government  which  were  early 
established,  the  general  maintenance  of  schools  in  every 
town  at  public  expense,  and  the  fact  that  almost  any  re 
spectable  trade  was  held  a  proper  occupation  for  anybody, 
have  gone  far  to  disguise  the  truth  that  from  the  very  set- 


192      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

tlement  of  New  England  certain  people  there  have  enjoyed 
an  often  recognized  position  of  social  superiority.  This 
Yankee  aristocracy,  to  be  sure,  has  never  been  strictly 
hereditary;  with  almost  every  generation  old  names  have 
socially  vanished  and  new  ones  appeared.  Until  well  into 
the  nineteenth  century,  however,  two  facts  about  New 
England  society  can  hardly  be  questioned:  at  any  given 
time  there  was  a  tacitly  recognized  upper  class,  some 
times  described  by  the  word  "quality";  and  although  in 
the  course  of  time  most  families  had  their  ups  and  downs, 
such  changes  were  never  so  swift  or  so  radical  as  materially 
to  alter  the  general  social  structure. 

In  the  beginning,  as  Cotton  Mather's  old  word,  "the 
ocracy,"  asserted,  the  socially  and  politically  dominant 
class  was  the  clergy.  Until  1885,  indeed,  a  relic  of  this 
fact  survived  in  the  Quinquennial  Catalogues  of  Harvard 
College,  where  the  names  of  all  graduates  who  became 
ministers  were  still  distinguished  by  italics.  In  the  same 
catalogues  the  names  of  graduates  who  became  governors 
or  judges,  or  in  certain  other  offices  attained  public  dis 
tinction,  were  printed  in  capital  letters.  These  now 
trivial  details  indicate  how  the  old  social  hierarchy  of  New 
England  was  based  on  education,  public  service,  and  the 
generally  acknowledged  importance  of  the  ministry.  When 
the  mercantile  class  of  the  eighteenth  century  grew  rich,  it 
enjoyed  in  Boston  a  similar  distinction,  maintained  by 
pretty  careful  observance  of  the  social  traditions  which  by 
that  time  had  become  immemorial.  And  as  the  grow 
ing  complexity  of  society  in  country  towns  developed  the 
learned  professions  of  law  and  medicine,  the  squire  and 
the  doctor  were  almost  everywhere  recognized  as  persons 
of  consideration.  From  the  beginning,  meanwhile,  there 


Some  General  Characteristics  193 

had  been  in  New  England  two  other  kinds  of  people,  tacitly 
felt  to  be  of  lower  rank:  those  plain  folks  such  as  were 
originally  known  by  the  epithet  "goodman,"  who,  main 
taining  personal  respectability,  never  rose  to  intellectual 
or  political  eminence,  and  never  made  more  than  enough 
money  to  keep  decently  out  of  debt,  and  those  descend 
ants  of  immigrant  servants  and  the  like,  whose  general 
character  resembled  that  of  the  poor  whites  of  the  South. 
Just  as  the  local  aristocracy  of  fifty  years  ago  provided 
almost  every  Yankee  village  with  its  principal  people,  so 
this  lowest  class  contributed  to  almost  every  village  a  rec 
ognized  group  of  village  drunkards. 

The  political  forms  which  governed  this  isolated  popu-  social 
lation  were  outwardly  democratic;  the  most  characteristic  stabmty« 
were  the  town- meetings  of  which  so  much  has  been  written. 
The  population  itself,  too,  was  nowhere  so  large  as  to  allow 
any  resident  of  a  given  town  to  be  a  complete  stranger  to 
any  other;  but  as  the  generations  passed,  the  force  of  local 
tradition  slowly,  insensibly  increased  until,  long  before 
1800,  the  structure  of  New  England  society  had  become 
extremely  rigid.  Sewall,  as  we  have  seen,  preserves  an  un 
conscious  picture  of  this  society  in  the  closing  years  of  the 
seventeenth  century  and  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth. 
In  more  deliberate  literature  there  are  various  more  con 
scious  pictures  of  it  later.  To  mention  only  a  few,  Mrs. 
Stowe's  Oldtown  Folks  gives  an  admirably  vivid  account 
of  the  Norfolk  country  about  1800;  Whittier's  Snow- 
Bound  preserves  in  "Flemish  Pictures"  the  Essex  County 
farmers  of  a  few  years  later;  and  Lowell's  papers  on 
"Cambridge  Thirty  Years  Ago"  and  on  "A  Great  Public 
Character" — Josiah  Quincy — give  more  stately  pictures 
of  Middlesex  County  at  about  the  same  time.  The  inci- 


194      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

dental  glimpses  of  life  in  Jacob  Abbott's  "Rollo  Bocks"  are 
artlessly  true  of  Yankee  life  in  the  '403;  Miss  Lucy  Lar- 
com's  New  England  Girlhood  and  Dr.  Edward  Everett 
Hale's  more  cursory  New  England  Boyhood  carry  the 
story  from  a  little  earlier  to  a  little  later.  Miss  Alcott's 
Little  Women  does  for  the  '6os  what  "Rollo"  does  for 
the  '403.  And  the  admirable  tales  of  Miss  Mary  Wilkins 
and  of  Miss  Sarah  Orne  Jewett  portray  the  later  New 
England  country  in  its  decline.  In  all  these  works,  and 
in  the  many  others  of  which  we  may  take  them  as  typical, 
you  will  find  people  of  quality  familiarly  mingling  with 
others,  but  tacitly  recognized  as  socially  superior,  almost 
like  an  hereditary  aristocracy. 

Such  fixity  of  social  structure,  developed  during  two 
centuries  of  geographical  and  social  isolation,  could  not 
help  resulting  in  characteristic  ways  of  thinking  and  feel 
ing.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  deepest  traits  of 
Yankee  character  had  their  origin  in  the  intense  religious 
convictions  of  the  immigrants.  The  dominant  class  of 
pristine  New  England  were  the  clergy,  whose  temper  so 
permeated  our  seventeenth-century  literature.  Their 
creed  was  sternly  Calvinistic;  and  Calvinism  imposes 
upon  whoever  accepts  it  the  duty  of  constant,  terribly 
serious  self-searching.  The  question  before  every  indi 
vidual  who  holds  this  faith  is  whether  he  can  discern  within 
himself  the  signs  which  shall  prove  him  probably  among 
the  elect  of  Gobi.  The  one  certain  sign  of  his  regeneration 
may  be  found  in  spontaneous  consciousness  of  ability  to 
use  his  will  in  accordance  with  that  of  God ;  in  other  words, 
the  elect,  and  no  one  else,  can  be  admitted  by  unmerited 
divine  grace  into  something  like  spiritual  communion 
with  God  himself.  God  himself  embodies  absolute  right 


Some  General  Characteristics          195 

and  absolute  truth.  What  the  strenuously  self-searching 
inner  life  of  serious  Yankees  aimed  to  attain,  accordingly, 
was  immutable  conviction  of  absolute  truth. 

This  it  sought  under  the  guidance  of  a  tyrannically 
dominant  priestly  class.  Till  well  after  1800,  the  ortho 
dox  clergy  of  New  England  maintained  their  formal  emi 
nence  almost  unbroken.  In  every  village  the  settled  min 
ister,  who  usually  held  his  office  for  life,  was  a  man  apart ; 
but  he  was  in  constant  correspondence  with  his  fellows 
elsewhere.  If  by  any  chance  a  New  England  parson 
happened  to  go  away  from  home,  he  naturally  put  up  at  the 
minister's  in  every  town  where  he  passed  a  night.  As  Dr. 
Holmes  once  put  the  case,  the  Yankee  clergy  formed  some 
thing  like  a  Brahmin  caste,  poor  in  the  goods  of  this  world, 
but  autocratic  in  power. 

A  fact  about  them  which  is  often  forgotten,  however,  Power  of 
profoundly  influenced  New  England  life.  Once  in  office,  En^iand 
they  exercised  tyrannical  authority;  but  to  exercise  this, 
they  had  to  get  into  office  and  to  stay  there.  This  they 
could  do  only  after  being  "  called,"  as  the  phrase  still  goes, 
by  a  majority  of  the  church  members.  Thus  the  elect  of 
God,  as  somebody  has  phrased  it,  became  the  electors  of 
God's  chosen.  From  this  state  of  things  resulted  a  pal 
pable  check  on  the  power  of  the  old  Yankee  ministers.  In 
one  aspect  they  were  autocratic  tyrants;  in  another  they 
were  subject  to  the  tyrannical  power  of  an  irresponsible 
majority  vote.  The  kind  of  thing  which  sometimes  re 
sulted  has  always  been  familiar  in  America.  The  first 
President  of  Harvard  College  was  compelled  to  resign  his 
office  because  he  believed  in  baptism  by  immersion;  and 
Jonathan  Edwards,  after  twenty  years  of  service,  was  de 
posed  from  the  pulpit  of  Northampton  at  the  instance  of 


196      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

a  disaffected  congregation.  If  the  old  New  England 
clergy,  in  fact,  felt  bound  to  watch  and  guard  their  con 
gregations,  whose  errors  they  denounced  with  all  the 
solemnity  of  divine  authority,  the  congregations  from  the 
beginning  returned  the  compliment.  They  watched,  they 
criticized,  they  denounced  errors  of  the  clergy  almost  as 
sharply  as  the  clergy  watched  and  criticized  and  denounced 
theirs. 

One  can  see  why  this  state  of  things  was  unavoidable. 
Sincere  Calvinists  believed  that  divine  grace  vouchsafed 
only  to  the  elect  the  power  of  perceiving  absolute  truth. 
The  elect,  chosen  at  God's  arbitrary  pleasure,  might  quite 
as  probably  be  found  among  the  laity  as  the  unregenerate 
might  be  found  among  the  clergy.  And  any  mistake  any 
where  in  the  system  was  no  trivial  matter;  it  literally 
meant  eternal  doom.  So  the  deepest  fact  in  the  personal 
life  of  oldest  New  England,  on  the  part  of  clergy  and  laity 
alike,  was  this  intensely  earnest,  reciprocally  tyrannical, 
lifelong  search  for  absolute  truth. 

Toward  the  period  of  the  American  Revolution  the 
mercantile  prosperity  of  Boston  had  tended  to  develop  in 
the  capital  city  of  New  England  the  kind  of  people  familiar 
to  us  in  the  portraits  of  John  Singleton  Copley  (1737- 
1815);  and  their  manners  were  becoming  superficially 
like  those  of  their  contemporary  England.  The  Boston 
gentry  of  the  third  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century  were 
a  wealthier  class,  and  in  closer  contact  with  the  Old  World 
than  any  had  been  before  their  time.  In  various  aspects, 
the  society  which  Copley  painted  was  probably  beginning 
to  lose  some  characteristic  native  traits.  If  these  were 
momentarily  disappearing  from  the  surface  of  fashionable 
New  England  life,  however,  they  remained  a  little  beneath 


Some  General  Characteristics          197 

it  in  all  their  pristine  force.  The  literary  history  of  the 
Revolution  shows  that  the  arguments  of  the  Tories  may 
be  distinguished  from  those  of  the  Revolutionists  by  a 
pretty  sharp  line.  The  temper  of  the  conservative  party 
which  the  Revolution  overthrew  was  marked  by  strong 
attachment  to  established  forms  of  law.  The  temper  of 
that  revolutionary  party  which  ultimately  triumphed  was 
marked,  despite  respectful  recognition  of  legal  precedent, 
by  a  more  instinctive  liking  for  absolute  right.  In  this 
revolutionary  attachment  to  absolute  right,  there  is  some 
thing  more  analogous  to  the  unquestioning  faith  in  abso 
lute  truth  which  marked  the  ancestral  Calvinists  than  we 
can  discern  in  that  respect  for  law  and  order  which  had 
become  the  dominant  sentiment  of  the  Tories.  How 
ever  debatable  the  suggestion  may  be,  the  work  of  the 
Revolution  in  New  England  sometimes  looks  like  the  re- 
assertion  of  the  old  native  type  in  a  society  which  for  a  little 
while  had  seemed  to  be  yielding  precedence  to  persons  of 
somewhat  more  cosmopolitan  sympathy. 

This  new  generation  of   dominant   New  Englanders, 
however,  many  of  whom  were  born  in  the  country  and 
came  to  Boston  in  search  of  fortune,  was  in  many  ways 
sounder  and  more  characteristically  native  than  the  gen-   character- 
eration  which  it  supplanted.     To  speak  of  it  as  if  it  were  ^t-lcsN°f 
a  commonplace  lower  class  which  had  emerged  from  a  Generation, 
great  political  convulsion,  would  be  totally  to  misunder 
stand  the  situation.     In  the  first  place,  the  men  of  whom 
it  was  composed  would  have  been  recognized  anywhere  as 
remarkably  able;  in  the  second  place,  if  generally  de- 
seended  from  families  for  the  moment  less  conspicuous 
than  those  whom  Copley  had  painted  a  generation  earlier, 
they  were  usually  people  who  had  inherited  the  sturdiest 


198      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

traditions  of  New  England  manhood.  Many  of  them  could 
trace  descent  from  the  "  quality  "  of  a  century  or  so  before; 
and  at  least  until  after  the  Revolution,  even  the  lower 
classes  of  native  New  England  had  never  so  far  departed 
from  the  general  native  type  as  to  resemble  a  European 
populace  or  mob.  So  the  New  England  gentlemen  who 
came  to  their  best  when  Gilbert  Stuart  (1755-1828)  was 
painting  were  mostly  people  who  retained,  in  rather  more 
purity  than  the  provincial  aristocracy  which  for  a  while 
had  been  more  fortunate,  the  vigorous  traits  of  the  original 
native  character.  Coming  to  prominence  and  fortune, 
too,  with  the  growth  of  our  new  national  life,  they  com 
bined  with  the  vigor  of  their  untired  blood  a  fine  flush  of 
independence. 

Materially  this  new  generation  declared  itself  in  several 
obvious  ways.  The  first  was  a  development  of  foreign 
commerce,  particularly  with  the  East  Indies.  This  brought 
our  native  sailors  and  merchants  into  personal  contact 
with  every  part  of  the  world  where  they  could  make  trade 
pay.  The  consequent  enlargement  of  the  mental  horizon 
of  New  England  was  almost  incalculable.  Incidentally 
this  foreign  trade  helped  develop  that  race  of  seamen 
which  so  asserted  the  naval  power  of  the  United  States  in 
the  War  of  1812.  The  embargo  which  preceded  that 
War  diverted  the  more  energetic  spirit  of  New  England 
from  foreign  commerce.  Before  long  there  ensued  that 
development  of  manufactures,  particularly  on  the  Mer- 
rimac  River,  which  remains  so  conspicuous  a  source  of 
New  England  wealth.  And  at  just  about  the  time  when 
these  manufactures  were  finally  established,  railways  at 
last  brought  Boston  into  constant  and  swift  communica 
tion  with  all  parts  of  the  New  England  country, — with 


Some  General  Characteristics          199 

Salem  and  Newburyport,  with  Fitchburg,  with  Worcester, 
with  Providence,  and  with  various  parts  of  the  old 
Plymouth  colony. 

For  almost  two  hundred  years  New  England,  with  its 
intensely  serious  temper,  its  rigid  social  traditions,  and  its 
instinctive  belief  in  absolute  truth,  had  been  not  only  an 
isolated  part  of  the  world,  but  had  itself  consisted  of  small 
isolated  communities.  Now  at  a  moment  when,  at  least 
relatively,  its  material  prosperity  was  not  only  greater  than 
ever  before,  but  probably  greater  than  it  will  ever  be  again, 
the  whole  region  was  suddenly  flashed  into  unity.  It  was  Unity  of 
during  this  period  that  New  England  produced  the  most  Eng^^ 
remarkable  literary  expression  which  has  yet  declared 
itself  in  America.  To  say  that  this  resulted  from  social 
and  economic  causes  is  too  much;  what  can  surely  be 
asserted  is  that  the  highest  development  of  intellectual 
life  in  New  England  coincided  with  its  greatest  material 
prosperity.  From  the  time  when  Benjamin  Franklin  left 
Boston,  where  Cotton  Mather  was  still  preaching,  until 
the  days  when  Unitarianism  broke  out  there,  while  cotton- 
mills  sprang  up  on  the  Merrimac,  Boston  even  in  America 
was  hardly  of  the  first  importance.  At  this  moment  it  has 
probably  ceased  to  be  so.  But  during  the  first  three  quar 
ters  of  the  nineteenth  century  its  economic  importance  was 
pronounced;  and  intellectually  it  was  superior  to  any 
other  city  in  America. 

What  happened  there  economically  and  politically,  is 
not  our  immediate  business.  What  does  concern  us  is  the 
intellectual  outburst;  and  this,  as  we  shall  see,  took,  on 
the  whole,  a  form  which  may  best  be  described  as  renas 
cent.  In  all  sorts  of  intellectual  life  a  new  spirit  declared 
itself;  but  this  new  spirit  was  more  like  that  which  aroused 


200      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

old  Italy  to  a  fresh  sense  of  civilized  antiquity  than  like  a 
spontaneous  manifestation  of  native  thought  or  feeling. 
In  a  few  years  New  England  developed  a  considerable 
political  literature,  of  which  the  height  was  reached  in 
formal  oratory;  it  developed  a  new  kind  of  scholarship, 
of  which  the  height  was  reached  in  admirable  works  of 
history;  in  religion  it  developed  Unitarianism;  in  philos 
ophy,  Transcendentalism;  in  general  conduct,  a  tendency 
toward  reform  which  deeply  affected  our  national  history; 
and  meantime  it  developed  the  most  mature  school  of  pure 
letters  which  has  yet  appeared  in  this  country.  To  these 
various  phases  of  the  New  England  Renaissance  we  may 
now  devote  ourselves  in  turn. 


li 

THE  NEW  ENGLAND  ORATORS 

REFERENCES 
WEBSTER 

WORKS:  Works,  6  vols.,  Boston:  Little  &  Brown,  1851;  E.  P.  Whip- 
pie,  The  Great  Speeches  and  Orations  of  Daniel  Webster,  with  an  Essay 
on  Daniel  Webster  as  a  Master  of  English  Style,  Boston :  Little,  Brown  & 
Co.,  1879. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  G.  T.  Curtis,  Life  of  Daniel  Webster,  2 
vols.,  New  York:  Appleton,  1869-70;  H.  C.  Lodge,  Daniel  Webster,  Bos 
ton:  Hough  ton,  1884  (AS). 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Channing  and  Hart,  Guide,  §§  181-182, 191, 197. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  105-118;  Duyckinck,  II,  32-34;  Hart,  Con 
temporaries,  III,  No.  159;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  IV,  450-477. 

EVERETT 

WORKS:  Orations  and  Speeches,  4  vols.,  Boston:  Tattle,  Brown  &  Co., 
1853-68. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  R.  W.  Emerson,  "Historic  Notes  of  Life 
and  Letters  in  New  England,"  (Wks.,  X,  307  ff.). 

SELECTIONS  :  Duyckinck,  II,  171-173;  Hart,  Contemporaries,  IV, 
No.  79;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  V,  329-339. 

CHOATE 

WORKS:  Works,  with  Memoir  by  S.  G.  Brown,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Little, 
Brown  &  Co.,  1862. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  S.  G.  Brown,  Life  of  Rufus  Choale,  Boston: 
Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1870. 

SELECTIONS:  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  V,  495-501. 
R.  c.  WINTHROP 

WORKS:  Addresses  and  Speeches  on  Various  Occasions,  4  vols.,  Boston: 
Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1852-86. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  R.  C.  Winthrop,  Jr.,  Memoir,  Boston: 
Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1897. 

SELECTIONS:  Duyckinck,  II,  501-503;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VI, 
420-429. 

THROUGHOUT  the  seventeenth  century,  the  literary  ex 
pression  of  New  England  had  been  chiefly  theological; 

201 


202       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

in  the  eighteenth  century  this  expression,  at  least  in  the 
region  of  Boston,  became  chiefly  political.  In  each 
case  the  dominant  phase  of  New  England  expression  had 
been  decidedly  serious,  and  had  been  concerned  with  one  of 
the  ideals  most  deeply  associated  with  our  ancestral  lan 
guage.  These  ideals  we  have  broadly  called  those  of  the 
Bible  and  of  the  Common  Law;  the  former  incessantly 
reminds  us  that  we  must  do  right,  the  latter  that  we  must 
maintain  our  rights.  And  they  have  in  common  another 
trait  than  either  their  deep  association  with  the  temper 
of  English-speaking  races  or  their  pervasive  seriousness; 
both  are  best  set  forth  by  means  of  public  speaking. 

From  the  very  beginning  the  appetite  for  public  dis 
course  in  New  England  had  been  correspondingly  keen. 
In  the  seventeenth  century  a  minister  who  preached  or 
prayed  well  was  sure  of  admiration  and  popularity ;  in  the 
eighteenth  century  a  similar  popularity  was  the  certain 
reward  of  a  lawyer,  too,  who  displayed  oratorical  power; 
and  until  long  after  1800  native  Yankees  had  a  tradi 
tional  liking,  which  they  honestly  believed  unaffected,  for 
hearing  people  talk  from  platforms  or  pulpits. 

When  the  Revolution  came,  accordingly,  the  surest 
means  of  attaining  eminence  in  New  England  was  public 
speaking.  James  Otis,  always  a  man  rather  of  speech 
than  of  action,  began  the  career  which  made  his  name 
national  by  his  spoken  argument  against  Writs  of  Assist 
ance.  The  heroic  memory  of  Joseph  Warren  is  almost 
as  closely  associated  with  his  oration  at  the  Old  South 
Church  concerning  the  Boston  Massacre  as  with  his  death 
at  Bunker  Hill.  Samuel  Adams,  too,  is  remembered  as 
eloquent;  and  John  Adams  was  a  skilful  public  speaker. 
There  is  something  widely  characteristic,  indeed,  in  the 


The  New  England  Orators  203 

speech  which  Webster's  eulogy  of  1826  attributed  to  this 
first  New  England  President  of  the  United  States.  The 
famous  "Sink  or  swim,  live  or  die,  survive  or  perish," 
closely  imitates  the  harangues  and  speeches  of  classical 
historians.  In  each  case  the  speeches  may  possibly  have 
been  based  on  some  tradition  of  what  was  actually  said; 
in  each  case,  obeying  the  conventional  fashion  of  his  time, 
the  writer — Thucydides,  Livy,  or  Webster — puts  into  the 
mouth  of  a  hero  eloquent  words  which  are  really  his  own. 
In  each  case  these  words  not  only  characterize  the  per 
sonages  who  are  feigned  to  have  uttered  them,  but  as 
elaborately  artificial  pieces  of  rhetoric  they  throw  light  as 
well  both  on  the  men  who  composed  them  and  on  the  pub 
lic  for  which  they  were  composed.  In  more  than  one  way, 
we  can  see  the  speech  which  Webster's  superb  fiction  of 
1826  attributed  to  the  John  Adams  of  half  a  century  be 
fore  illustrates  the  New  England  oratory  of  which  Adams 
was  one  of  the  first  exponents  and  Webster  himself  the 
greatest. 

For  between  Adams's  early  maturity  and  Webster's 
prime  there  was  a  flood  of  public  speaking  in  New  Eng 
land,  more  and  more  punctilious  and  finished  in  form. 
Were  oratory  pure  literature,  indeed,  and  not  rather  re 
lated  to  the  functions  of  the  pulpit  or  the  bar,  we  should 
have  to  linger  over  the  American  oratory  of  the  century 
which  followed  the  Revolution.  In  a  study  like  ours,  how 
ever,  we  need  only  glance  at  it;  and  this  hasty  glance 
shows  clearly  that  its  most  eminent  exponent  in  New 
England  was  DANIEL  WEBSTER  (1782-1852). 

Webster's  public  life  is  a  matter  of  familiar  history.   Webster. 
The  son  of  a  New  Hampshire  farmer,  he  graduated  at 
Dartmouth  College.     He  began  his  legal  career  in  his  na- 


204       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

tive  State;  but  before  1820  removed  to  Boston.  Webster's 
active  life  in  Massachusetts  coincided  with  the  full  de 
velopment  of  those  manufacturing  industries  at  the  head 
of  which  were  some  of  the  most  substantial  members  of 
the  old  Whig  party,  which  for  a  good  while  controlled 
Massachusetts  politics.  Of  this  party  Webster  soon 
became  the  recognized  leader,  acquiring  such  power  as  no 

other  political  leader  of  New 
England  has  known  before  or 
since. 

As  an  advocate  at  the  bar,  as  a 
representative  of  public  senti 
ment  on  memorable  festal  occa 
sions,  and  finally  as  the  most 
influential  of  American  Senators, 
Webster's  means  of  asserting 
himself  remained  the  same.  He 
had  an  unsurpassed  power  of  get 
ting  up  before  great  bodies  of  his 
fellow- citizens  and  talking  to 
them  in  a  way  which  should  hold  their  attention,  influ 
ence  their  convictions,  and  guide  their  conduct. 

Webster's  most  famous  occasional  speeches  are  those 
at  the  Pilgrim  anniversary  (1820),  at  the  laying  of  the 
corner  stone  of  Bunker  Hill  Monument  (1825),  and  on 
Adams  and  Jefferson  (1826);  his  most  noted  legal  argu 
ments  are  on  the  Dartmouth  College  case  (1817)  and  on 
the  White  Murder  case  (1830) ;  his  greatest  political  speech 
is  his  "  Reply  to  Hayne  "  (1830).  As  one  reads  in  chrono 
logic  order  these  great  speeches  and  the  others  in  the  six 
volumes  of  Webster's  collected  works,  one  finds  a  gain  in 
solidity,  simplicity,  and  eloquence.  These  qualities 


/t-  >*V-— 


The  New  England  Orators  205 

combined  with  Webster's  immense  physical  impressive- 
ness  and  his  wonderful  voice  to  make  him  the  greatest  of 
American  orators. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  Webster  occasionally  lapsed 
into  bulky  commonplace,  and  that  even  his  greatest  efforts 
have  about  them  an  air  of  elaborate  artificiality,  though 
his  artificiality  almost  always  has  a  ring  of  genuineness. 
Webster  wrote  and  spoke  in  a  way  which  to  him,  as  well 
as  to  the  public  of  his  time,  seemed  the  only  fit  one  for 
matters  of  such  dignity  as  those  with  which  he  had  to  deal; 
and  he  wrote  and  spoke  with  a  fervid  power  which  any 
one  can  recognize.  All  the  same,  his  style  is  certainly  more 
analogous  to  Dr.  Johnson's  published  prose  than  to  those 
idiomatic  utterances  recorded  by  Boswell  which  have 
made  Johnson  immortal.  If  Webster's  power  is  beyond 
dispute,  so  is  his  tendency  to  pose.  This  tendency  he 
enforced,  in  a  manner  which  was  thoroughly  acceptable  to 
the  America  of  his  time,  by  an  extremely  elaborate  rhetoric 
based  partly  on  the  parliamentary  traditions  of  eighteenth 
century  England,  and  partly,  like  those  traditions  them 
selves,  on  the  classical  oratory  of  Rome  and  Greece. 

Such  highly  developed  oratory  as  Webster's  never  grows 
into  existence  alone.  Webster  was  only  the  most  eminent 
member  of  a  school  which  has  left  many  other  memories, 
in  their  own  day  of  almost  equal  distinction;  and  as  a 
typical  New  Hampshire  man,  indeed  he  was  rather  less 
representative  of  the  Boston  orators  of  his  time  than  were 
some  natives  of  Massachusetts. 

Of  these  none  was  more  distinguished  than  EDWARD  Everett. 
EVERETT  (1794-1865).     The  son  of  a  minister,   whose 
father  was  a  farmer,  he  took  his  degree  at  Harvard  in 
1811,  and  two  years  later  he  became  for  a  while  minister 


206      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

of  the  Brattle  Street  Church  in  Boston.  A  year  or  so  later, 
having  been  appointed  professor  of  Greek  at  Harvard,  he 
went  abroad  to  prepare  himself  for  his  academic  duties, 
and  was  among  the  earliest  of  American  scholars  to  study 
at  a  German  university.  On  his  return  from  Europe  he 
"exhibited,"  says  Emerson,*  "  all  the  richness  of  a  rhet 
oric  which  we  have  never  seen  ri 
valled  in  this  country." 

That  Everett  was  no  mere  rhet 
orician,  however,  the  facts  of  his 
career  instantly  show.  Besides  be 
ing  preacher  and  college  professor, 
he  was  an  editor  of  the  North  Amer 
ican  Review;  for  ten  years  he  was 
a  member  of  Congress;  for  four 
years  he  was  governor  of  Massa- 
chusetts;  for  four  more  he  was 
Minister  to  England;  he  succeeded 
Webster  as  Secretary  of  State;  he 

was  president  of  Harvard  College;  he  was  senator  from 
Massachusetts;  and  in  1860  he  was  nominated  for  the 
vice-presidency  of  the  United  States  by  the  party  which 
bravely  tried  to  avert  secession.  In  person  he  embodied 
that  dignified  grace  which  marked  the  Whig  gentlemen  of 
Massachusetts;  and  if  his  sensitiveness  of  feeling  and  his 
formality  of  manner  prevented  him  at  once  from  popular 
ity  and  from  unrestrained  fervor  of  utterance,  no  man  of 
his  time  has  been  remembered  with  more  admiration  or 
respect.  And  this  whole  brilliant  and  useful  career  was 
based  on  consummate  mastery  of  rhetoric. 

*  "Historic  Notes  of  Life  and  Letters  in  New  England"  in  Emerson's 
Works,  Riverside  edition,  vol.  x,  pp.  307  ff.  The  sentence  quoted  is  on 
P-  314- 


The  New  England  Orators  207 

Everett's  published  works  consist  of  four  volumes,  en 
titled  Orations  and  Speeches,  beginning  with  an  address 
before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Harvard  College  on 
"The  Circumstances  Favorable  to  the  Progress  of  Litera 
ture  in  America,"  delivered  in  1824,  and  closing  with  a 
brief  address  at  Faneuil  Hall  in  aid  of  a  "Subscription  to 
Relieve  the  Suffering  People  of  Savannah,"  delivered  on 
the  gth  of  January,  1865,  less  than  a  week  before  his  death. 
Throughout  these  four  volumes,  comprising  the  utter 
ances  of  more  than  forty  years,  every  paragraph  seems  a 
studied  work  of  art.  Everett's  natural  feeling  was  warm 
and  spontaneous;  but  he  had  acquired  and  he  unswerv 
ingly  maintained  that  incessant  self-control  which  'his  gen 
eration  held  among  the  highest  ideals  of  conduct.  So 
whatever  he  publicly  uttered,  and  still  more  whatever  he 
suffered  himself  to  print,  was  deliberately  considered  to 
the  minutest  detail. 

The  eloquence  and  the  rhetorical  skill  of  Webster  and 
of  Everett  were  the  more  admired  in  their  own  day  for  the 
reason  that  they  were  exercised  in  behalf  of  those  political 
principles  which  then  commanded  the  support  of  all  con 
servative  people  in  Massachusetts.  So  too  was  the  elo 
quence  of  many  other  men,  each  of  whom  may  fairly  be 
held  a  master  of  the  art  of  which  Everett  and  Webster  were 
the  most  eminent  exponents.  Even  so  cursory  a  study  as 
ours  may  not  neglect  the  name  of  RUFUS  CHOATE  (1799-  choate. 
1859),  like  Webster  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth,  like  Everett 
a  lifelong  reader  of  the  classics,  and  for  years  not  only 
eminent  in  public  life,  but  acknowledged  to  be  the  most 
powerful  advocate  at  the  New  England  bar.  A  little  later 
than  the  piime  of  these  men  there  arose  in  Boston  another 
generation  of  orators,  differing  from  their  predecessors 


208      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

both  in  principle  and  to  some  degree  in  method,  who  used 
their  great  powers  for  purposes  which  impressed  conser 
vative  people  as  demagogic.  Of  these  the  most  eminent 
were  Wendell  Phillips,  Theodore  Parker,  and  Charles 
Sumner.  On  all  three  we  shall  touch  later.  But  we  may 
hardly  again  have  occasion  to  mention  an  eminent  citizen 
of  the  elder  type  who  preserved  to  the  end  the  traditions 
of  that  great  school  of  formal  oratory  of  which  he  was  the 
last  survivor, — ROBERT  CHARLES  WINTHROP  (1809-1894). 
With  Winthrop,  one  may  say,  the  oratory  of  New  Eng 
land  expired.  And  now,  as  one  considers  its  century  and 
more  of  history,  one  discerns  more  and  more  clearly  why 
the  period  in  which  it  reached  its  height  may  best  be  un 
derstood  when  we  call  it  a  period  of  Renaissance.  Almost 
from  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  isolated  New  England, 
like  the  rest  of  America,  was  awakening  to  a  new  sense 
of  national  consciousness ;  so  the  society  of  New  England, 
traditionally  one  which  venerated  its  leaders,  looked  to 
the  men  whom  circumstances  brought  prominently  for 
ward  for  indubitable  assertion  of  dignity  in  our  national 
character.  The  professional  circumstances  which  brought 
men  forward  were  generally  those  of  the  pulpit  or  the  bar; 
clergymen  and  lawyers  accordingly  found  that  they  could 
no  longer  maintain  their  eminence  by  merely  treading  in 
the  footsteps  of  their  predecessors.  Trained  in  our  old 
Yankee  colleges  at  a  time  when  such  education  meant  a 
little  mathematics  and  a  tolerable  reading  knowledge  of 
the  classics,  these  men,  who  felt  themselves  called  upon 
to  express  our  new  nationality,  turned  by  instinct  to  that 
mode  of  expression  which  in  crude  form  had  long  been 
characteristic  of  their  country.  In  their  impulsive  desire 
to  give  this  a  new  vitality,  they  instinctively  began  to  emu- 


The  New  England  Orators  209 

late  first  the  formal  oratory  of  England,  which  had  reached 
its  height  in  the  preceding  century;  and  then,  perhaps 
more  consciously,  they  strove  to  saturate  themselves  with 
the  spirit  of  those  masterpieces  of  oratory  which  help  to 
immortalize  the  inimitable  literatures  of  Rome  and  of 
Greece. 

On  general  principles,  the  world  might  have  expected 
America  to  produce  public  utterances  of  a  crudely  passion 
ate  kind,  marked  rather  by  difference  from  what  had  gone 
before  than  by  respect  for  traditional  models.  Instead, 
without  a  touch  of  affectation,  our  orators,  obeying  the 
genuine  impulse  of  their  nature,  exerted  their  most  strenu 
ous  energy  in  persistent  efforts  to  emulate  the  achieve 
ments  of  an  extremely  elaborate  art  which  had  attained 
final  excellence  in  the  days  of  Cicero  and  Demosthenes. 
The  oratorical  models  of  Greece  and  of  Rome  they  imi 
tated  in  just  such  spirit  as  that  in  which  the  masterpieces 
of  antique  plastic  art  were  imitated  by  fifteenth-century 
Italy.  Apart  from  its  political  significance,  as  embodying 
principles  which  controlled  the  American  history  of  their 
time,  their  work  is  significant  in  our  study  as  proving  how 
spontaneously  the  awakening  national  consciousness  of 
New  England  strove  to  prove  our  country  civilized  by 
conscientious  obedience  to  eldest  civilized  tradition. 


Ill 

THE    NEW    ENGLAND    SCHOLARS    AND    HISTORIANS 

REFERENCES 

GENERAL  REFERENCES:  Justin  Winsor,  "Libraries  in  Boston,"  Me 
morial  History  of  Boston,  IV,  235  ff;  A.  B.  Hart,  "The  American  School 
of  Historians,"  International  Monthly,  Vol.  II,  No.  3  (September,  1900); 
J.  F.  Jameson,  The  History  oj  Historical  Writing  in  America,  Boston: 
Houghton,  1891. 

SPARKS 

WORKS:  No  collected  edition  of  Sparks's  writings.  The  chief  titles  are: 
Library  o)  American  Biography,  first  series,  10  vols.,  Boston:  Hilliard, 
Gray  &  Co.,  1834-38;  second  series,  15  vols.,  Boston:  Little  &  Brown, 
1844-48;  Washington's  Writings,  12  vols.,  Boston:  Hilliard,  Gray  &  Co., 
1834-37;  Franklin's  Works,  10  vols.,  Boston:  Hilliard,  Gray  &  Co.,  1836— 
40;  Correspondence  of  the  American  Re-volution,  4  vols.,  Boston:  Little, 
Brown  &  Co.,  1853;  The  Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the  American 
Revolution,  12  vols.,  Boston:  N.  Hale  and  Gray  &  Bowen,  1829-30. 

BIOGRAPHY,  CRITICISM,  AND  BIBLIOGRAPHY:  H.  B.  Adams,  The  Lije 
and  Writings  of  Jared  Sparks,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1893. 

SELECTIONS:  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  V,  191-196. 


WORKS:  History  of  Spanish  Literature,  3  vols.,  New  York:  Harper, 
1849;  Life  of  William  Hickling  Prescott,  Boston:  Ticknor  &  Fields,  1864. 
There  is  no  uniform  edition  of  Ticknor's  works. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  The  Life,  Letters,  and  Journals  of  George 
Ticknor,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Osgood,  1876.  (Prepared  by  G.  S.  Hillard,  with 
Mrs.  and  Miss  Ticknor.) 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  293-294. 

SELECTIONS:  Duyckinck,  II,  232-235;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  V, 
240-248. 

PRESCOTT 

WORKS:  Works,  ed.  J.  F.  Kirk,  12  vols.,  Philadelphia:  Lippincott, 
1890-92. 

210 


New  England  Scholars  211 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  George  Ticknor,  Life  of  William  Hick- 
ling  Prescott,  Boston:  Ticknor  &  Fields,  1864;  Rollo  Ogden,  William 
Hickling  Prescott,  Boston:  Houghton,  1904  (AML). 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  232-233. 

SELECTIONS:  ^Carpenter,  175-186;  Duyckinck,  II,  237-242;  *Stedman 
and  Hutchinson,  V,  399-428. 

MOTLEY 

WORKS:  Historical  Works,  17  vols.,  New  York:  Harper,  1900;  Letters, 
ed.  G.  W.  Curtis,  2  vols.,  New  York:  Harper,  1889. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  Memoir  by  O.  W.  Holmes,  Boston; 
Houghton,  1878. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  203-204. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  326-337;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VII,  253- 
268. 

PARKMAN 

WORKS:  Works,  12  vols.,  Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1900-01. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  *C.  H.  Farnham,  A  Li/e  of  Francis  Park- 
man,  Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1900;  John  Fiske,  "Francis  Park- 
man"  (A  Century  of  Science  and  Other  Essays),  Boston:  Houghton,  1900, 
pp.  194-264;  H.  D.  Sedgwick,  Francis  Parkman,  Boston:  Houghton, 
1904  (AML). 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  217-218. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  437-450;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VIII, 
95-110. 

THE  high  development  of  mental  activity  indicated  by 
the  renascent  oratory  of  New  England  was  not  solitary: 
something  similar  appeared  at  the  same  period  in  the 
professional  scholarship  of  the  region.  From  the  begin 
ning,  the  centre  of  learning  there  had  been  Harvard  Col 
lege,  founded  to  perpetuate  a  learned  ministry.  This  it 
did  throughout  its  seventeenth-century  career;  and  in  the 
eighteenth  century  it  also  had  the  distinction  of  educating 
many  lawyers  and  statesmen  who  became  eminent  at  the 
time  of  the  Revolution.  Up  to  the  beginning  of  the  nine 
teenth  century,  however,  Harvard  College  remained  little 
more  than  a  boys'  school.  It  received  pupils  very  young; 


212       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

it  gave  them  a  fair  training  in  Latin  and  Greek,  a  little 
mathematics,  and  a  touch  of  theology  if  they  so  inclined; 
and  then  it  sent  them  forth  to  the  careers  of  mature  life. 
It  contented  itself,  in  brief,  with  preserving  the  tradition 
of  academic  training  planted  in  the  days  of  Charles  I; 
and  this  it  held,  in  rather  mediaeval  spirit,  to  be  chiefly 
valuable  as  the  handmaiden  of  theology,  and  later  of 
law.  One  principal  function  of  a  true  university — that  of 
acquiring  and  publishing  fresh  knowledge — it  had  not 
attempted. 

In  the  surrounding  air,  however,  a  new  and  fresh  spirit 
of  learning  declared  itself,  and  the  leaders  of  this,  as  well 
as  the  followers,  were  generally  either  Harvard  men  or 
men  who  in  mature  life  were  closely  allied  with  our  oldest 
Growth  of  college.  The  celebrated  Count  Rumford,  for  one,  a 
Yankee  country  boy,  began  his  regular  study  of  science 
by  attending  the  lectures  of  Professor  John  Winthrop  of 
Harvard,  before  the  Revolution;  and  in  spite  of  his  per 
manent  departure  from  his  native  country,  he  retained  a 
keen  interest  in  New  England.  In  1780  he  had  some 
thing  to  do  with  the  founding  in  Boston  of  the  American 
Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  which,  with  the  exception  of 
Franklin's  Philosophical  Society  in  Philadelphia,  is  the 
oldest  learned  society  in  America.  For  more  than  a 
century  the  American  Academy  has  maintained,  in  its 
proceedings  and  its  publications,  a  standard  of  learning 
recognized  all  over  the  world  as  excellent.  Nor  was  it 
long  alone.  In  1791,  the  Massachusetts  Historical  So 
ciety  was  founded  for  the  purpose  of  collecting,  preserving, 
and  publishing  historical  matter,  chiefly  relating  to  its 
ancestral  Commonwealth.  Like  the  American  Academy 
this  society  still  flourishes,  and  during  its  century  of  ex- 


213 

istence  it  has  published  a  considerable  amount  of  material, 
admirably  set  forth  and  often  of  more  than  local  impor 
tance. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  too,  certain 
young  gentlemen  of  Boston,  mostly  graduates  of  Harvard 
and  chiefly  members  of  the  learned  professions,  formed 
themselves  into  an  Anthology  Club,  with  the  intention  of 
conducting  a  literary  and  scholarly  review.  Their  An-  Reviews, 
thology  did  not  last  long;  but  their  Club  developed  on  the 
one  hand  into  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  and  in  1815,  on  the 
other  hand,  into  that  periodical  which  long  remained 
the  serious  vehicle  of  scholarly  New  England  thought, — 
the  North  American  Review.  This  was  modelled  on  the 
great  British  Reviews, — the  "Edinburgh"  and  the  "Quar 
terly";  and  under  the  guidance  of  such  men  as  William 
Tudor,  Edward  Tyrrell  Channing,  Jared  Sparks,  James 
Russell  Lowell,  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  and  Dr.  Andrew 
Preston  Peabody,  it  maintained  its  dignity  for  more  than 
fifty  years. 

Though  the  American  Academy,  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society,  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  and  the  old 
North  American  Re-view  may  hardly  be  taken  as  com 
prehensive  of  the  new  learning  which  was  springing  into 
life  among  Boston  men  bred  at  Harvard,  they  are  especially 
typical  of  it,  in  the  fact  that  none  of  them  was  indige 
nous;  all  alike  were  successful  efforts  to  imitate  in  our 
independent  New  England  certain  learned  institutions 
of  Europe.  What  they  stand  for — the  real  motive  which 
was  in  the  air  — was  an  awakening  of  American  conscious 
ness  to  the  fact  that  serious  contemporary  standards 
existed  in  other  countries  than  our  own,  and  that  our  claim 
to  respect  as  a  civilized  community  could  no  longer  be 


214      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

maintained  by  the  mere  preservation  of  a  respectable 
classical  school  for  boys.  Our  first  outbreak  of  the  spirit 
of  learning,  indeed,  was  even  more  imitative  than  the 
contemporary  literature  which  sprang  up  in  New  York, 
or  than  the  oratory  which  in  the  same  years  so  elaborately 
developed  itself  in  Massachusetts. 

It  was  not  until  a  little  later  that  the  scholarly  impulses 
of  New  England  produced  either  persons  or  works  of 
literary  distinction;  but  the  form  which  the  characteristic 
literature  of  this  scholarship  was  to  take  had  already  been 
indicated  both  by  the  early  literary  activities  of  this  part 
of  the  country  and  by  the  nature  of  its  most  distin 
guished  learned  society.  From  the  earliest  period  of 
Massachusetts,  as  we  have  seen,  there  was,  along  with 
theological  writing,  a  considerable  body  of  publications 
which  may  be  roughly  classified  as  historical.  The  Mag- 
nalia  of  Cotton  Mather,  for  instance,  the  most  typical 
literary  production  of  seventeenth-century  America,  was 
almost  as  historical  in  impulse  as  it  was  theological.  Earlier 
still,  the  most  permanent  literary  monument  of  the  Plym 
outh  colony  was  Bradford's  manuscript  history;  and  such 
other  manuscripts  as  Winthrop's  history  and  SewalPs  diary 
show  how  deeply  rooted  in  the  colony  of  Massachusetts 
too  was  our  lasting  fondness  for  historical  record.  Other 
than  local  history,  indeed,  seems  to  have  interested  the 
elder  Yankees  chiefly  as  it  bore  on  the  origins  and  develop 
ment  of  New  England.  An  extreme  example  of  this  fact 
is  to  be  found  in  the  Chronological  History  o]  New  Eng 
land  in  the  Form  of  Annals,  the  first  volume  of  which  was 
published  in  1736,*  by  the  Reverend  THOMAS  PRINCE 

*  In  1755  appeared  the  two  pamphlet  numbers  which  make  up  the 
second  volume. 


Hutchin- 
son. 


New  England  Scholars  215 

(1687-1758),  minister  of  the  Old  South  Church.  Prince 
had  unrivalled  opportunities  for  collecting  and  preserving 
the  facts  of  our  first  century;  but,  having  thought  proper 
to  begin  his  work  by  "an  introduction,  containing  a  brief  Prince; 
Epitome  of  the  most  remarkable  Transactions  and  Events 
ABROAD,  from  the  CREATION,"  he  had  the  misfortune 
to  die  before  he  had  brought  the  chronology  of  New  Eng 
land  itself  to  a  later  period  than  1630.  A  more  philosoph 
ical  work  than  Prince's  was  that  History  of  Massachusetts* 
by  THOMAS  HUTCHINSON  (1711-1780),  which  may  perhaps 
be  called  the  most  respectable  American  book  before  the 
Revolution.  From  the  foundation  of  the  colony,  in  short, 
New  England  men  had  always  felt  strong  interest  in  local 
affairs  and  traditions;  and  this  had  resulted  in  a  general 
habit  of  collecting  and  sometimes  of  publishing  accounts 
of  what  had  happened  in  their  native  regions. 

The  temper  in  question  is  still  familiar  to  any  one  who 
knows  what  pleasure  native  Yankees  are  apt  to  take  in 
genealogical  research.  Throughout  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury  it  has  borne  fruit  in  those  innumerable  town  histories 
which  make  the  local  records  of  New  England  so  minutely 
accessible  to  all  who  have  patience  to  plod  through  volumes 
of  trivial  detail.  It  may  fairly  be  regarded  as  the  basis 
in  New  England  character  of  the  most  scholarly  literature 
which  New  England  has  produced.  For  during  the 
nineteenth  century  there  appeared  in  Boston  a  group  of 
historians  whose  work  became  widely  and  justly  celebrated. 

The  first  of  these,  although  he  made  a  deeper  impression 
on  the  intellectual  life  of  Boston  than  almost  anybody  else, 
is  hardly  remembered  as  of  high  literary  importance. 
This  was  GEORGE  TICKNOR  (1791-1871),  the  only  son  of 

*  Vol.  I,  1764;  vol.  II,  1767;  vol.  Ill,  1828. 


216      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

a  prosperous  Boston  merchant.  He  was  sent  to  Dartmouth 
College  and  after  graduation  prepared  himself  for  the 
practice  of  law;  but  finding  this  uncongenial,  and  having 
in  prospect  fortune  enough  to  maintain  himself  without  a 
profession,  he  determined  to  devote  himself  to  pure  schol 
arship.  In  1815  he  accordingly  went  abroad  and  studied 

at  the  University  of  Gottingen, 
where  Edward  Everett  came  in 
the  same  year.  These  two  were 
among  the  first  of  that  distin 
guished  and  continuous  line  of 
American  scholars  who  have 
supplemented  their  native  edu 
cation  by  enthusiastic  devotion 
to  German  learning.  In  1819, 
having  returned  to  America, 
Ticknor  became  the  first  Smith 
Professor  of  the  French  and 
Spanish  Languages  and  Belles 
Lettres  at  Harvard  College; 
Everett  at  the  same  time  be 
gan  his  lectures  there  as  professor  of  Greek.  Together 
they  stood  for  the  new  principle  that  instructors  ought 
not  only  to  assure  themselves  that  students  have  learned, 
but  actually  to  teach.  Everett  relinquished  his  profes 
sorship  in  1824,  betaking  himself  to  that  more  public 
career  which  is  better  remembered.  Ticknor,  the  first 
Harvard  professor  of  modern  languages,  retained  his 
chair  until  1835;  and  during  this  time  he  strenuously 
attempted  to  enlarge  the  office  of  Harvard  from  that  of  a 
respectable  high  school  to  that  of  a  true  university. 

Besides  this  service  to  professional  learning,  Ticknor, 


New  England  Scholars  217 

in  later  life,  had  more  than  any  one  else  to  do  with  the 
establishment  of  the  Boston  Public  Library.  Ticknor's 
private  library  was  in  its  day  among  the  largest  and  best 
selected  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic;  and  his  enthusiasm 
in  the  cause  of  learning  induced  him  to  lend  his  books  freely 
to  any  respectable  persons  who  satisfied  him  that  they 
really  wanted  to  use  them.  The  result  convinced  him  that 
if  he  could  bring  the  American  public  into  free  contact 
with  good  literature,  the  general  taste  for  good  reading 
would  increase,  and  the  general  intelligence  and  con 
sequent  civilization  would  improve,  in  accordance  with  the 
aspirations  of  human  nature  toward  what  is  best.  Thus 
the  idea  of  a  great  public  library  grew  in  his  mind ;  and  in 
1852  he  was  an  eager  leader  in  the  movement  which  estab 
lished  in  Boston  the  first  and  best  public  circulating  library 
of  America. 

As  the  first  learned  professor  of  modern  languages  in  an 
American  university,  as  the  first  exponent  in  our  university 
life  of  continental  scholarship,  as  the  earliest  of  Americans 
to  attempt  the  development  of  an  American  college  into  a 
modern  university,  and  finally  as  the  chief  founder  of  the 
chief  public  library  in  the  United  States,  Ticknor's  claims 
upon  popular  memory  are  remarkable.  Ticknor  himself, 
however,  would  probably  have  regarded  as  his  principal 
claim  to  recognition  the  History  0}  Spanish  Literature  History  of 
(1849).  From  tne  time  of  nis  first  journey  abroad  he  had 
been  attracted  to  Spanish  matters;  his  professorship  at 
Harvard,  too,  was  partly  devoted  to  Spanish  literature; 
and  incidentally  he  collected  a  Spanish  library  said  to  be 
the  most  important  outside  of  Spain  itself.  It  was  not  until 
thirty  years  after  he  began  the  work  of  the  Smith  profes 
sorship  that  he  published  his  history.  For  years  this  book, 


218       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

which  involved  untiring  investigation  of  the  best  German 
type,  remained  authoritative  and  did  much  to  establish 
throughout  the  learned  world  the  position  of  American 
scholarship.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  interesting. 
Ticknor's  mind  was  rather  acquisitive  and  retentive  than 
creative.  His  work  is  that  of  a  thoroughly  trained  scholar; 
of  a  man,  too,  so  sincerely  devoted  to  literature  that,  as  we 
have  seen,  his  services  to  literary  culture  in  America  can 
hardly  be  overestimated;  of  a  man,  furthermore,  whose 
letters  and  journals  show  him,  though  deficient  in  humor, 
to  have  had  at  command  an  agreeable  and  fluent  every-day 
style.  When  all  is  said,  however,  the  History  of  Spanish 
Literature  is  heavily  respectable  reading.  A  more  winning 
example  of  Ticknor's  literary  power  is  the  life  of  his  friend 
and  contemporary,  Prescott,  which  he  published  in  1864, 
five  years  after  Prescott's  death. 

About  the  time  when  Ticknor  began  his  teaching  in  the 
Smith  professorship  at  Harvard,  a  subsequently  famous 
declaration  of  the  Unitarian  faith  was  made  in  the  sermon 
preached  at  Baltimore  by  William  Ellery  Channing,  on 
the  occasion  of  the  ordination  to  the  Unitarian  ministry 
jared  of  a  man  no  longer  in  his  first  youth,  JARED  SPARKS  (1789- 
sparks.  I866).  Sparks's  ministerial  career  was  not  very  long. 
In  1824  he  became  an  editor  of  the  North  American 
Review,  and  for  the  rest  of  his  life  he  remained  in  New 
England.  From  1839  to  1849  ne  was  professor  of  history 
at  Harvard;  from  1849  to  T^53  ne  was  President  of  the 
College ;  and  after  his  resignation  he  continued  resident  in 
Cambridge  until  his  death. 

Sparks  left  behind  him  no  original  writings  which  have 
survived ;  but  his  special  services  to  historical  study  in  New 
England  were  almost  as  great  as  were  those  of  Ticknor 


New  England  Scholars  219 

to  the  study  of  modern  languages  and  to  the  modern  spirit 
in  learning.  In  1829  he  began  to  issue  The  Diplomatic 
Correspondence  of  the  American  Revolution  in  twelve  vol 
umes.  Between  1834  and  1840  he  collected  and  issued  the 
first  authoritative  editions  of  the  writings  of  Washington 
and  of  Franklin.  In  these  works,  although  he  permitted 
himself  to  correct  the  spelling  and  grammar  of  documents, 
he  showed  himself  to  be  scrupulously  exact  in  statements 
of  fact  and  untiring  in  methodical  accumulation  of  material. 
In  1834  appeared  the  first  volume  of  his  Library  of  Ameri 
can  Biography,  the  publication  of  which  continued  until 
1848.  In  each  of  the  twenty-five  volumes  are  the  lives  of 
three  or  four  eminent  Americans,  generally  written  by 
enthusiastic  young  scholars,  but  all  subjected  to  the  edi 
torial  supervision  of  Sparks,  who  thus  brought  into  being 
a  still  valuable  biographical  dictionary. 

Such  work  as  this  clearly  evinces  wide  and  enthusiastic 
interest  in  the  study  and  writing  of  history.  Though  not 
educated  in  Germany,  Sparks,  with  his  untiring  energy 
in  the  accumulation  and  arrangement  of  material,  and  his 
unusual  power  of  making  other  people  work  systematically, 
was  very  like  a  sound  German  scholar.  He  really  estab 
lished  a  large  historical  factory;  with  skilled  help,  he  col 
lected  all  the  raw  material  he  could  find;  and  he  turned 
out  something  like  a  finished  article  in  lengths  to  suit, — 
somewhat  as  his  commercial  contemporaries  spun  ex 
cellent  cotton.  In  a  mechanical  way  his  work  was  ad 
mirable;  he  really  advanced  New  England  scholarship. 

If  neither  Ticknor  nor  Sparks  contributed  to  permanent  Prescott. 
literature,  the  names  of  both  are  closely  connected  with 
that  of  the  first  man  in  New  England  who  wrote  history  in 
a  spirit  as  literary  as  that  of  Gibbon  or  Macaulay.     This 


220      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

is  the  personal  friend  whose  biography  by  Ticknor  is  the 
most  sympathetic  work  which  Ticknor  has  left  us — 
WILLIAM  HICKLING  PRESCOTT  (1796-1859).  In  the  first 
volume  of  Sparks's  Library  0}  American  Biography,  pub 
lished  in  1834,  is  Prescott's  "Life  of  Charles  Brockden 
Brown,"  written  in  the  somewhat  florid  style  then  fash 
ionable.  At  the  time  when  this  was  published,  Prescott 
was  known  as  a  gentleman  of  scholarly  temper  and  com 
fortable  fortune,  approaching  the  age  of  forty,  whose  life 
had  probably  been  ruined  by  an  accident  at  college.  The 
students  of  his  day  had  been  boisterous  in  table  manners ; 
and  on  one  occasion  somebody  thoughtlessly  threw  a  piece 
of  bread  across  the  dining-room,  striking  Prescott  in  the 
eye.  This  resulted  in  so  serious  an  injury  that  he  could 
never  read  again,  and  that  he  could  write  only  with  the  aid 
of  a  machine  composed  of  parallel  wires  by  means  of  which 
he  painfully  guided  his  pencil. 

Ferdinand  In  spite  of  these  obstacles  he  quietly  set  to  work  on  his 
Lobelia  Ferdinand  and  Isabella.  As  the  book  approached  com 
pletion,  he  was  beset  with  doubts  of  its  merit.  Unable 
to  use  his  eyes,  he  had  been  compelled  to  collect  his  ma 
terial  through  the  aid  of  readers,  and  then  to  compose  it 
in  his  head  before  he  felt  prepared  to  dictate  it;  and  he 
was  so  far  from  satisfied  with  the  result  of  his  labors  that  he 
hesitated  about  publication.  An  anecdote  which  Ticknor 
relates  of  this  moment  is  characteristic  of  the  man  and  of 
his  time.  "He  consulted  with  his  father,  as  he  always  did 
when  he  doubted  in  relation  to  matters  of  consequence. 
His  father  not  only  advised  the  publication,  but  told  him 
that '  the  man  who  writes  a  book  which  he  is  afraid  to  pub 
lish  is  a  coward.'"  So  in  1838  The  History  of  the  Reign 
o]  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  the  Catholic  was  published ;  and 


221 


at  last  New  England  had  produced  a  ripe  historian.  The 
Conquest  of  Mexico  followed  in  1843, tne  Conquest  of  Peru 
in  1847,  and  Prescott  was  still  engaged  on  his  Life  of 
Philip  II  when,  in  1859,  he  died  of  apoplexy. 

Since  Prescott's  time,  the  tendency  has  been  more  and 
more  to  regard  history  as  a  matter  rather  of  science  than 
literature;  the  fashion  of  style,  too,  has  greatly  changed 
from  that  which  prevailed  when 
New  England  found  the  model  of 
rhetorical  excellence  in  its  formal 
oratory.  Accordingly,  Prescott's 
work  is  often  mentioned  as  rather 
romantic  than  scholarly.  In  this 
view  there  is  some  justice.  The 
scholarship  of  his  day  had  not  col 
lected  anything  like  the  material 
now  at  the  disposal  of  students; 
and  Prescott's  infirmity  of  sight 
could  not  help  further  limiting  the 
range  of  his  investigation.  His 
style,  too,  always  clear  and  readable,  and  often  vivid,  is  style, 
somewhat  florid  and  generally  colored  by  what  seems  a 
conviction  that  historical  writers  should  maintain  the  dig 
nity  of  history.  For  all  this,  his  works  so  admirably  com 
bine  substantial  truth  with  literary  spirit  that  they  are 
more  useful  than  many  which  are  respected  as  more 
authoritative.  What  he  tells  us  is  the  result  of  thoughtful 
study;  and  he  tells  it  in  a  manner  so  clear,  and  so  urbane, 
that  when  you  have  read  one  of  his  chapters  you  remem 
ber  without  effort  what  it  is  about.  With  a  spirit  as  modern 
as  Ticknor's,  and  with  much  of  the  systematic  scholarship 
of  Sparks,  Prescott  combined  unusual  literary  power. 


222       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 


Renascent 
Quality. 


Bancroft. 


For  our  purposes,  however,  the  most  notable  phase  of 
his  work  is  to  be  found  in  the  subjects  to  which  he  turned. 
At  first  his  aspirations  to  historical  writing  took  a  general 
form.  At  last,  after  hesitation  as  to  what  he  should  write 
about,*  he  was  most  attracted  by  the  same  romantic  Spain 
which  a  few  years  before  had  captivated  Irving.  Sitting 
blind  in  his  New  England  of  the  early  Renaissance,  whose 
outward  aspect  was  so  staidly  decorous,  he  found  his 
imagination  stirred  by  those  phases  of  modern  history 
which  were  most  splendidly  unlike  his  ancestral  inexperi 
ence.  He  chose  first  that  climax  of  Spanish  history  when 
in  the  same  year,  1492,  native  Spaniards  triumphantly 
closed  their  eight  hundred  years  of  conflict  against  the 
Moorish  invaders,  and  the  voyage  of  Columbus  opened  to 
Spain  those  new  empires  of  which  for  a  while  our  own  New 
England  had  seemed  likely  to  be  a  part.  Then  he  found 
deeply  stirring  the  fatal  conflict  between  Spanish  invaders 
and  the  civilizations  of  prehistoric  America.  Finally,  hav 
ing  written  of  Spanish  power  at  its  zenith,  he  began  to 
record  the  tale  of  its  stormy  sunset  in  the  reign  of  Philip 
II.  So  the  impulse  of  this  first  of  our  standard  historians 
seems  very  like  that  of  Irving,  Irving  and  Prescott  alike, 
living  far  from  all  traces  of  antique  splendor,  found  their 
strongest  stimulus  in  the  most  brilliant  pageant  of  the 
romantic  European  past. 

There  were  New  England  historians,  to  be  sure,  who 
wrote  about  our  own  country.  The  most  eminent  of  these 
was  GEORGE  BANCROFT  (1800-1891),  who  graduated  at 
Harvard,  and  like  Ticknor  and  Everett  was  a  student  in 

*  See  his  Li/e  by  Ticknor,  pp.  70-76.  The  decision  was  much  influ 
enced  by  Prescott's  hearing  Ticknor  read  aloud  his  lectures  on  Spanish 
literature. 


New  England  Scholars  223 

Germany.  Afterwards  he  was  for  a  while  a  tutor  at  Har 
vard,  and  later  a  master  of  the  celebrated  Round  Hill  school 
in  Western  Massachusetts.  Not  long  afterwards  he  be 
came  a  public  man;  he  was  Collector  of  the  Port  of  Boston, 
he  was  Secretary  of  the  Navy  under  President  Polk,  and 
subsequently  he  was  Minister  both  to  England  and  to  Ger 
many.  He  left  New  England  at  about  the  age  of  forty 
and  afterwards  resided  chiefly  in  Washington.  In  1834, 
the  year  in  which  Prescott's  "Life  of  Brockden  Brown" 
was  published,  appeared,  too,  the  first  volume  of  Ban 
croft's  History  oj  the  United  States,  a  work  on  which  he 
was  steadily  engaged  for  fifty-one  years,  and  which  he  left 
unfinished.  The  dominant  politics  of  New  England  had 
been  Federalist;  Bancroft's  history  sympathized  with  the 
Democratic  party.  In  consequence,  sharp  fault  was 
found  with  him,  and  he  was  never  on  cordial  terms  with 
the  other  New  England  historians;  but  he  persevered  in 
writing  history  all  his  life,  and,  for  all  the  diffuse  floridity 
of  his  style,  he  is  still  an  authority.  Partly  to  correct  Ban 
croft,  RICHARD  HILDRETH  (1807-1865)  wrote  a  History  midreth: 
of  the  United  States  (1851-1856)  from  the  Federalist  point  Palfrey- 
of  view;  and  Dr.  JOHN  GORHAM  PALFREY  (1796-1881) 
was  for  years  engaged  on  his  minute  but  lifeless  History 
of  New  England  (1858-1890).  In  these,  however,  and 
in  the  other  historians  who  were  writing  of  our  own  coun 
try,  there  was  less  imaginative  vigor  and  far  less  literary 
power  than  in  Prescott  or  in  the  two  younger  New  Eng 
land  historians  whose  works  are  indubitably  literature. 

The  first  of  these  younger  men  was  JOHN  LOTHROP  Motley. 
MOTLEY    (1814-1877).      He   graduated   at  Harvard;  he 
studied  for  a  while  in  Germany,  where  he  began  in  youth 
a  lifelong  friendship  with  his  fellow-student  Count  Bis- 


224      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

marck;  and  toward  the  end  of  his  life  he  lived  mostly  in 
Europe.  At  one  time  he  was  Minister  to  Austria,  and 
later  to  England.  As  early  as  1839  he  wrote  Merlon's 
Hope,  a  novel,  which  deserved  its  lack  of  success.  A 
little  later  he  anonymously  wrote  for  the  North  American 
Review  an  article  on  Peter  the  Great  which  attracted  much 
favorable  attention;  but  it  was  not  until  1856  that  he  pub 
lished  his  first  permanent  work,  The  Rise  0}  the  Dutch 
Republic.  This  was  followed,  between  1861  and  1868, 
by  his  History  0}  the  United  Netherlands,  and  finally  in 
1874  by  his  John  0}  Barneveld. 

Motley's  historical  work  is  obviously  influenced  by  the 
vividly  picturesque  writings  of  Carlyle.  It  is  clearly  in 
fluenced,  too,  by  intense  sympathy  with  that  liberal  spirit 
which  he  believed  to  characterize  the  people  of  the  Nether 
lands  during  their  prolonged  conflict  with  Spain.  From 
these  traits  result  several  obvious  faults.  In  trying  to  be 
vivid,  he  becomes  artificial.  In  the  matter  of  character, 
too,  his  Spaniards  are  apt  to  be  intensely  black,  and  his 
Netherlanders  ripe  for  heaven.  Yet,  for  all  this  partisan 
temper,  Motley  was  so  industrious  in  accumulating  ma 
terial,  so  untiring  in  his  effort  vividly  to  picture  historic 
events,  and  so  heartily  in  sympathy  with  his  work,  that  he 
is  almost  always  interesting.  What  most  deeply  stirred 
him  was  his  belief  in  the  abstract  right  of  man  to  political 
liberty;  and  this  he  wished  to  celebrate  with  epic  spirit. 
Belief  and  spirit  alike  were  characteristically  American; 
in  the  history  of  his  own  country  there  was  abundant 
evidence  of  both.  The  assertion  of  liberty  which  finally 
stirred  his  imagination  to  the  point  of  expression,  however, 
was  not  that  of  his  American  forefathers,  but  the  earlier 
one,  more  brilliantly  picturesque,  and  above  all  more 


New  England  Scholars  225 

remote,  which  had  marked  the  history  of  a  foreign  race  in 
Europe.  Even  as  late  as  Motley's  time,  in  short,  the 
historical  imagination  of  New  England  was  apt  to  seek 
its  material  abroad. 

The  latest  and  most  mature  of  our  New  England  his-  Parkman. 
torians  was  more  national.  FRANCIS  PARKMAN  (1823- 
1893),  the  son  of  a  Unitarian  minister,  was  born  at  Boston. 
He  graduated  at  Harvard  in  1844.  By  that  time  his  health 
had  already  shown  signs  of  infirmity;  and  this  was  so 
aggravated  by  imprudent  physical  exposure  during  a  jour 
ney*  across  the  continent  shortly  after  graduation  that  he 
was  a  lifelong  invalid.  Threatened  for  a  full  half-century 
with  ruinous  malady  of  both  brain  and  body,  he  persisted, 
by  sheer  force  of  will,  with  literary  plans  which  he  had 
formed  almost  in  boyhood.  His  imagination  was  first 
kindled  by  the  forests  of  our  ancestral  continent.  These 
excited  his  interest  in  the  native  races  of  America;  and 
this,  in  turn,  obviously  brought  him  to  the  frequent  alli 
ances  between  the  French  and  the  Indians  during  the 
first  two  centuries  of  our  American  history.  His  lifelong 
work  finally  resulted  in  those  volumesf  which  record  from 
beginning  to  end  the  struggles  for  the  possession  of  North 
America  between  the  French,  with  their  Indian  allies, 
and  that  English-speaking  race  whose  final  victory  deter 
mined  the  course  of  our  national  history. 

Parkman's  works  really  possess  great  philosophic  in- 

*  Recorded  in  The  California  and  Oregon  Trail,  1849. 

t  The  History  of  the  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac,  1851;  The  Pioneers  0} 
France  in  the  New  World,  1865;  The  Jesuits  in  North  America  in 
the  Seventeenth  Century,  1867;  The  Discovery  of  the  Great  West,  1869; 
The  Old  Regime  in  Canada,  1874;  Count  Frontenac  and  New  France 
under  Louis  XIV,  1877;  Montcalm  and  Wolje,  1884;  A  Half-Century 
o)  Conflict,  1892. 


226      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 


Summary. 


terest.  With  full  sympathy  for  both  sides,  with  untiring 
industry  in  the  accumulation  of  material,  with  good  sense 
so  judicial  as  to  forbid  him  the  vagaries  of  preconception, 
and  with  a  literary  sensitiveness  which  made  his  later 
style  a  model  of  sound  prose,  he  set  forth  the  struggles 
which  decided  the  political  future  of  America.  Moved 
to  this  task  by  an  impulse  rather  romantic  than  scien 
tific,  to  be  sure,  gifted  with  a  sin 
gularly  vivid  imagination  too 
careful  a  scholar  to  risk  undue 
generalization,  and  throughout 
life  so  hampered  by  illness  that 
he  could  very  rarely  permit  him 
self  prolonged  mental  e  ff  o  r  t , 
Parkman  sometimes  appeared 
chiefly  a  writer  of  romantic  nar 
rative.  As  you  grow  familiar 
with  his  work,  however,  you  feel 
it  so  true  that  you  can  infuse  it 
with  philosophy  for  yourself.  It 
is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  his  writings  afford  as 
sound  a  basis  for  historical  philosophizing  as  does  great 
fiction  for  philosophizing  about  human  nature. 

Parkman  brings  the  story  of  renascent  scholarship  in 
New  England  almost  to  our  own  day.  When  the  nine 
teenth  century  began,  our  scholarship  was  merely  a  tra 
ditional  memory  of  classical  learning,  generally  treated  as 
the  handmaiden  either  of  professional  theology  or  of  pro 
fessional  law.  When  the  spirit  of  a  new  life  began  to 
declare  itself  here,  and  people  grew  aware  of  contemporary 
foreign  achievement,  there  came  first  a  little  group  of  men 
who  studied  in  Europe  and  brought  home  the  full  spirit 


New  England  Scholars  227 

of  that  continental  scholarship  which  during  the  present 
century  has  so  dominated  learning  in  America.  As  this 
spirit  began  to  express  itself  in  literary  form,  it  united  with 
our  ancestral  fondness  for  historic  records  to  produce, 
just  after  the  moment  when  formal  oratory  most  flourished 
here,  an  eminent  school  of  historical  literature.  Most  of 
this  history,  however,  deals  with  foreign  subjects.  The 
historians  of  New  England  were  generally  at  their  best 
when  stirred  by  matters  remote  from  their  native  inex 
perience. 

Considering  the  relation  of  this  school  of  history  to  the 
historical  literature  of  England,  one  is  inevitably  reminded 
that  the  greatest  English  history,  Gibbon's  Decline  and 
Fall  oj  the  Roman  Empire,  first  appeared  in  the  very  year 
of  our  Declaration  of  Independence.  In  one  aspect,  of 
course,  the  temper  of  Gibbon  is  as  far  from  romantic  as  Gibbon, 
possible.  He  is  the  first,  and  in  certain  aspects  the  great 
est,  of  modern  philosophical  historians;  and  his  style  has 
all  the  formality  of  the  century  during  which  he  wrote.  In 
another  aspect  the  relation  of  Gibbon's  history  to  the  Eng 
land  which  bred  him  seems  very  like  that  of  our  New  Eng 
land  histories  to  the  country  and  the  life  which  bred  their 
writers.  Gibbon  and  our  own  historians  alike  turned  to  a 
larger  and  more  splendid  field  than  was  afforded  by  their 
national  annals.  Both  alike  were  distinctly  affected  by  an 
alert  consciousness  of  what  excellent  work  had  been  done 
in  contemporary  foreign  countries.  Both  carefully  ex 
pressed  themselves  with  conscientious  devotion  to  what 
they  believed  the  highest  literary  canons.  Both  produced 
work  which  has  lasted  not  only  as  history  but  as  literature 
too.  Gibbon  wrote  in  the  very  year  when  America  de 
clared  her  independence  of  England;  Prescott  began  his 


228      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

work  in  Boston  nearly  sixty  years  later.  So  there  is 
an  aspect  in  which  our  historical  literature  seems  to  lag 
behind  that  of  the  mother  country  much  as  Irving's  prose — 
contemporary  with  the  full  outburst  of  nineteenth-century 
romanticism  in  England — lags  behind  the  prose  of  Gold 
smith. 

Very  cursory,  all  this;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  historians  of  New  England,  like  the  New  England 
orators,  might  profitably  be  made  the  subject  of  minule 
and  interesting  separate  study.  Our  own  concern,  how 
ever,  is  chiefly  with  pure  letters.  Before  we  can  deal  with 
them  intelligently  we  must  glance  at  still  other  aspects  of 
renascent  New  England.  We  have  glanced  at  its  oratory 
and  at  its  scholarship.  We  must  now  turn  to  its  religion 
and  its  philosophy. 


IV 

UNITARIANISM 

REFERENCES 

GENERAL  REFERENCES:  G.  W.  Cooke,  Unitarianism  in  America, 
Boston:  American  Unitarian  Association,  1902;  *A.  P.  Peabody, 
"The  Unitarians  in  Boston,"  Winsor's  Memorial  History  of  Boston, 
III,  Chapter  xi;  James  Freeman  Clarke's  Autobiography,  Boston: 
Houghton,  1891;  G.  E.  Ellis,  Half-Century  of  the  Unitarian  Controversy, 
Boston:  Crosby,  Nichols  &  Co.,  1857. 

CHANNING 

WORKS:  Complete  Works,  Boston:  American  Unitarian  Association, 
1886. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  W.  H.  Channing,  The  Life  of  William 
Ellery  Channing,  Boston:  American  Unitarian  Association,  1880;  J.  W. 
Chadwick,  William  Ellery  Channing,  Boston:  Houghton,  1903. 

SELECTIONS:  Duyckinck,  II,  22-24;  Griswold's  Prose,  162-168;  Sted- 
man,  85-87;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  V,  3-19. 


The  life  of  George  Ripley,  whose  works  are  no  longer  in  print,  has  been 
written  for  the  American  Men  of  Letters  Series  by  O.  B.  Frothingham 
(Boston:  Houghton,  1883).  There  are  selections  from  Ripley  in  Sted- 
flian  and  Hutchinson,  VI,  100-106. 

MARKED  as  was  the  change  in  the  oratory  and  the  schol-  Reaction 
arship  of  New  England  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  nine-   cr°™inism. 
teenth  century,  the  change  in  the  dominant  religious  views 
of  a  community  which  had  always  been  dominated  by 
religion  was  more  marked  still.     From  the  beginning  till 
after  the  Revolution,  the  creed  of  New  England  had  been 
the  Calvinism  of  the  Puritans.     In  1809,  William  Ellery 

229 


230      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

Charming,  then  a  minister  twenty-nine  years  old,  wrote 
of  this  old  faith: 

"  Whosoever  will  consult  the  famous  Assembly's  Catechisms  and 
Confession,  will  see  the  peculiarities  of  the  system  in  all  their  length 
and  breadth  of  deformity.  A  man  of  plain  sense,  whose  spirit  has 
not  been  broken  to  this  creed  by  education  or  terror,  will  think  that 
it  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  travel  to  heathen  countries,  to  learn  how 
mournfully  the  human  mind  may  misrepresent  the  Deity." 

"How  mournfully  the  human  mind  may •  misrepresent 
the  Deity!"  You  will  be  at  pains  to  find  nine  words  which 
shall  more  thoroughly  express  the  change  which  the  Renais 
sance  brought  to  the  leading  religious  spirits  of  Boston. 

The  resulting  alteration  in  dogmatic  theology  has  given 
to  the  new  school  of  New  England  divines  the  name  of 
Unitarians.  According  to  the  old  creed,  the  divine  char 
acter  of  Christ  was  essential  to  redemption;  without  his 
superhuman  aid  all  human  beings  were  irrevocably 
doomed.  But  the  moment  you  assumed  human  nature  to 
contain  adequate  seeds  of  good,  the  necessity  for  a  divine 
Redeemer  disappeared.  Accordingly  the  New  England 
Unitarians  discerned,  singly  and  alone,  God,  who  had 
made  man  in  his  image.  One  almost  perfect  image  they 
recognized  in  Jesus  Christ ;  a  great  many  inferior  but  still 
indubitable  ones  they  found  actually  living  about  them. 

Although  this  radical  change  in  theology  was  what  gave 
Unitarianism  its  name,  the  underlying  feeling  which  gave 
it  being  had  little  concern  with  mystic  dogmas.  What 
ever  the  philosophy  of  primitive  Christianity,  the  philoso 
phy  of  traditional  Christianity  had  for  centuries  taught 
the  depravity  of  human  nature;  this  dogma  the  Puritans 
had  brought  to  New  England,  where  they  had  uncom 
promisingly  preserved  it.  Now,  whatever  your  philosophy, 


Unitarianism  231 

this  dogma  does  account  for  such  social  phenomena  as 
occur  in  densely  populated  lands  where  economic  pressure 
is  strong.  In  our  own  great  cities  you  need  a  buoyant 
spirit  and  a  hopefully  unobservant  eye  to  perceive  much 
besides  evil;  and  if  you  compare  Boston  or  New  York 
with  London  or  Paris,  you  can  hardly  avoid  discerning, 
beneath  the  European  civilization  which  is  externally 
lovelier  than  ours,  depths  of  evil  to  which  we  have  hardly 
yet  sunk.  The  Europe  of  Calvin's  time  seems  on  the 
whole  even  more  pervasively  wicked;  and  more  wicked 
still  seems  that  decadent  Roman  Empire  where  Augustine 
formulated  the  dogmas  which  at  last  Channing  so  unfal 
teringly  set  aside. 

We  need  hardly  remind  ourselves,  however,  that  up  to  simplicity 
the  time  of  Channing  the  history  of  America,  and  particu-  °an  Life' 
larly  of  New  England,  had   been  a  history  of  national  *nd 

Chfl.r3.ctcr. 

inexperience.  Compared  with  other  races,  the  people  of 
New  England,  released  for  generations  from  the  pressure 
of  dense  European  life,  found  a  considerable  degree  of 
goodness  surprisingly  practicable.  This  social  fact  re 
sembled  a  familiar  domestic  one:  an  eldest  child  is  apt 
to  be  angelic  until  some  little  brother  gets  big  enough  to 
interfere  with  him;  and  if  by  chance  no  little  brother 
appears,  the  angelic  traits  will  very  likely  persist  until  the 
child  goes  to  school  or  otherwise  comes  in  contact  with 
external  life.  Up  to  the  days  of  Channing  himself,  the 
Yankee  race  may  be  likened  to  a  Puritan  child  gravely 
playing  alone. 

So  even  by  the  time  of  Edwards,  Calvinistic  dogma  and 
national  inexperience  were  unwittingly  at  odds.  Our 
glances  at  subsequent  American  letters  must  have  shown 
how  steadily  the  native  human  nature  of  America  continued 


232       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

to  express  itself  in  forms  which  could  not  reasonably  be 
held  to  be  evil.  In  New  York,  for  example,  the  first  third 
of  the  nineteenth  century  produced  Brockden  Brown  and 
Irving  and  Cooper  and  Bryant;  later  came  Poe,  Willis, 
and  the  Knickerbocker  School.  Not  eternally  memorable, 
even  the  worst  of  these  does  not  seem  a  bit  wicked. 
Turning  to  certain  phases  of  New  England  at  about  the 
same  time,  we  saw  in  its  public  life  the  patriotic  intensity 
of  Webster  and  the  classical  personality  of  Everett  estab 
lishing  a  tradition  of  sustained  dignity  which  passed  only 
with  Robert  Charles  Winthrop,  who  lies  beneath  the  well- 
earned  epitaph,  "Eminent  as  a  scholar,  an  orator,  a 
statesman,  and  a  philanthropist, — above  all,  a  Christian." 
And  when  we  came  to  the  scholarship  of  New  England, 
we  found  it  finally  ripening  into  the  dignified  pages  of 
Ticknor,  of  Prescott,  of  Motley,  and  of  Parkman. 

In  a  society  like  this,  Calvinistic  dogma  seems  constantly 
further  from  truth,  as  taught  by  actual  life.  However 
familiar  to  experience  in  dense  old  worlds,  habitually 
abominable  conduct  was  rather  strange  to  the  national 
inexperience  of  America,  and  particularly  of  renascent 
New  England.  Even  during  the  eighteenth  century,  in 
deed,  a  considerable  number  of  ministers,  particularly  of 
the  region  about  Boston,  gradually  and  insensibly 
relaxed  the  full  rigor  of  Calvinism. 

Two  events  will  serve  to  typify  this  change.  In  1785, 
^r-  James  Freeman,  minister  of  King's  Chapel,  being 
compelled  to  revise  the  Anglican  Prayer  Book,  found  him 
self  conscientiously  disposed  so  to  alter  the  liturgy  as 
considerably  to  modify  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity.  The 
liturgy  thus  made,  which  is  sometimes  held  to  mark  the 
beginning  of  Boston  Unitarianism,  differs  from  the  forms 


Unitarianism  233 

which  it  displaced  in  its  tendency  to  regard  Christ  as  only 
an  excellent  earthly  manifestation  of  God's  creative  power, 
a  being  whom  men  need  only  as  an  example  not  as  a  re 
deemer.  About  twenty  years  after  this  King's  Chapel 
liturgy,  Harvard  College  succumbed  to  the  religious  ten 
dency  which  that  liturgy  embodies.  The  chief  theological 
chair  at  Harvard,  the  Hollis  Professorship  of  Divinity, 
which  up  to  1805  had  remained  a  seat  of  Calvinistic  doc 
trine,  was  given  in  that  year  to  the  Reverend  Henry  Ware, 
an  avowed  Unitarian.  The  orthodox  party  at  Harvard  Unitaria 
had  opposed  Ware  with  all  their  might;  so  when  he  was  Harvard 
made  Hollis  Professor,  the  ancestral  college  of  Puritan  New 
England  was  finally  handed  over  to  Unitarianism,  which 
until  very  recent  years  remained  its  acknowledged  faith. 

Defeated  at  Harvard,  the  orthodox  party  retreated  to 
Andover,  where  they  founded  the  Theological  Seminary 
which  defended  old  Calvinism  in  a  region  abandoned  to 
its  enemies.  Nowadays  the  whole  thing  is  fading  into 
history,  but  at  first  the  conflict  was  heart-breaking.  For 
on  each  side  faith  was  fervent;  and  if  the  conquering 
Unitarians  believed  themselves  to  be  destroying  pernicious 
and  ugly  heresy,  the  Calvinists  believed  just  as  sincerely 
that  in  angelic  guise  the  devil  had  possessed  himself  of 
New  England.  In  their  mood,  there  was  a  consequent 
depth  of  despair  to  which  the  Unitarians  have  hardly  done 
full  justice.  To  the  Unitarian  mind  there  has  never  been 
any  valid  reason  why  good  men  of  other  opinions  than 
theirs  should  not  enjoy  everlasting  bliss;  but  the  very 
essence  of  the  Calvinists'  creed  condemned  to  everlasting 
woe  every  human  being  who  rejected  the  divinely  revealed 
truth  of  their  grimly  uncompromising  system. 

To  suppose,  however,  that  the  founders  of  Unitarianism 


234      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 


Unitarian  meant  to  be  unchristian  would  be  totally  to  misunderstand 
me'  them.  They  revered  the  Scriptures  as  profoundly  as  ever 
Calvinists  did.  The  difference  was  that  they  discerned 
in  Scripture  no  such  teaching  as  the  experience  of  old- 
world  centuries  had  crystallized  into  Calvinistic  dogma. 
In  the  first  place,  they  found  in  the  Bible  no  passages 

which  necessarily  involved  the 
dogma  of  the  Trinity.  There 
might  be  puzzling  sentences ;  but 
there  were  also  clear,  constant 
statements  that  there  is  one  God, 
who  made  man  in  His  image. 
This  assertion,  they  held,  amounts 
to  proof  that  men  are  the  children 
of  God,  and  that  they  have  thus 
inherited  from  God  the  divine 
faculties  of  reason  and  of  con 
science.  When  in  the  Bible  there 
are  puzzling  texts,  or  when  in  life 
there  are  puzzling  moments,  we 
need  only  face  them  with  con 
scientiously  reasonable  temper.  If  we  are  truly  made  in 
the  image  of  God,  we  shall  thus  reach  true  conclusions; 
and  meanwhile  to  guide  our  way,  God  has  made  that 
most  excellent  of  his  creatures,  Jesus  Christ. 

Channing.  From  this  state  of  faith  there  naturally  resulted  in  Unita- 
rianism  a  degree  of  spiritual  freedom  which  allowed  each 
minister  to  proclaim  whatever  truth  presented  itself  to  his 
conscience.  Unitarianism  has  never  formulated  a  creed. 
It  has  tacitly  accepted,  however,  certain  traditions  which 
have  been  classically  set  forth  by  its  great  apostle,  WILLIAM 
ELLERY  CHANNING  (1780-1842).  He  was  born  at  New- 


Unitarianism  235 

port;  he  took  his  degree  at  Harvard  in  1798;  and  from 
1803  to  1840  he  was  minister  at  the  Federal  Street  Church 
in  Boston. 

In  1819,  he  preached  at  Baltimore,  on  the  occasion  of  Unitarian 
the  ordination  of  Jared  Sparks,  his  famous  sermon*  on  ity"s 
Unitarian  Christianity.  He  took  his  text  from  i  Thess.  v. 
21 :  "Prove  all  things;  hold  fast  that  which  is  good." 
His  first  point  is  that  "we  regard  the  Scriptures  as  the 
records  of  God's  successive  revelations  to  mankind,  and 
particularly  of  the  last  and  most  perfect  revelation  of  his 
will  by  Jesus  Christ."  The  Scriptures,  he  goes  on  to  say, 
must  be  interpreted  by  the  light  of  reason.  So,  applying 
reason  to  Scripture,  he  deduces  in  the  first  place  the  doc 
trine  of  God's  unity,  "  that  there  is  one  God,  and  one  only;" 
secondly,  that  "Jesus  is  one  mind,  one  soul,  one  being,  as 
truly  one  as  we  are,  and  equally  distinct  from  the  one  God;" 
thirdly,  that  "God  is  morally  perfect;"  fourthly,  that 
"Jesus  was  sent  by  the  Father  to  effect  a  moral  or  spiritual 
deliverance  of  mankind;  that  is,  to  rescue  men  from  sin 
and  its  consequences,  and  to  bring  them  to  a  state  of  ever 
lasting  purity  and  happiness;"  and,  fifthly,  that  "all  virtue 
has  its  foundation  in  the  moral  nature  of  man,  that  is,  in 
conscience,  or  his  sense  of  duty,  and  in  the  power  of  form 
ing  his  temper  and  life  according  to  conscience." 

Human  nature,  Channing  holds,  is  thus  essentially  good; 
man  is  made  in  the  image  of  God,  and  all  man  need  do  is 
to  follow  the  light  which  God  has  given  him.  The  greatest 
source  of  that  light,  of  course,  is  Christ.  Whether  Christ 
was  literally  the  son  of  God  or  not  makes  no  difference :  he 
walked  the  earth;  he  was  the  most  perfect  of  men;  and  we 
can  follow  him.  He  was  human  and  so  are  we.  In  earthly 

*  Works,  Boston  and  New  York,  1853,  vol.  Ill,  pp.  59-103. 


236      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

life  he  could  avoid  damnation,  and  all  we  need  do  is  to 
behave  as  nearly  like  him  as  we  can.  If  the  false  teachings 
of  an  outworn  heresy  make  all  this  reasonable  truth  seem 
questionable,  look  about  you.  Do  your  friends  deserve, 
as  in  that  sermon  of  Edwards's,  to  be  held  suspended  by  a 
spider-like  thread  over  a  fiery  furnace  into  which  they 
may  justly  be  cast  at  any  moment;  or  rather,  for  all  their 
faults  and  errors,  do  they  not  merit  eternal  mercy?  So 
if  all  of  us  try  to  do  our  best,  is  there  any  reasonable 
cause  for  fearing  that  everything  shall  not  ultimately  go 
right  ?  The  old  Unitarians  looked  about  them  and  hon- 
Unitarian-  estly  found  human  nature  reassuring, 
trasted^vith  What  finally  distinguishes  early  Unitarianism  from  the 
Calvinism.  Calvinism  which  it  supplanted,  is  this  respect  for  what  is 
good  in  human  nature  as  contrasted  with  the  Calvinistic 
insistence  on  what  is  bad.  What  is  good  needs  encourage 
ment;  what  is  bad  needs  checking.  What  is  good  merits 
freedom;  what  is  bad  demands  control.  Obedience  to 
authority,  the  Calvinists  held,  may  reveal  in  you  the 
tokens  of  salvation;  spiritual  freedom,  the  Unitarians 
maintained,  must  result  in  spiritual  growth.  For  a  dog 
matic  dread  they  substituted  an  illimitable  hope.  Evil 
and  sin,  sorrow  and  weakness,  they  did  not  deny;  but 
trusting  in  the  infinite  goodness  of  God,  they  could  not 
believe  evil  or  sin,  the  sorrows  or  the  weaknesses  of 
humanity,  to  be  more  than  passing  shadows.  Inspired 
with  this  newly  hopeful  spirit,  they  held  their  way  through 
the  New  England  whose  better  sort  were  content  for  half 
a  century  to  follow  them.  Personally  these  early  leaders 
of  Unitarianism  were,  as  any  list  *  of  their  names  will 

*  Such,  for  example,  as  that  in  the  article  on  "Unitarianism  in 
Boston,"  contributed  by  Dr.  Andrew  P.  Peabody  to  Winsor's  Memorial 
History  of  Boston,  Vol.  Ill,  Chap.  xi. 


Unitarianism  237 

show,  a  company  of  such  sweet,  pure,  noble  spirits  as 
must  arouse  in  men  who  dwell  with  them  a  deep  respect 
for  human  nature.  In  them  the  national  inexperience  of 
America  permitted  almost  unrestrained  the  development 
of  a  moral  purity  which  to  those  who  possess  it  makes 
the  grim  philosophy  of  damnation  seem  an  ill- conceived 
nursery  tale. 

The  Unitarianism  of  New  England,  of  course,  was  not 
unique  either  theologically  or  philosophically.  In  its 
isolated  home,  however,  it  developed  one  feature  which 
distinguishes  its  early  career  from  similar  phases  of  relig 
ious  history  elsewhere.  The  personal  purity  and  moral 
beauty  of  its  leaders  combined  with  their  engaging  the 
ology  to  effect  the  rapid  social  conquest  of  the  whole  region 
about  Boston.  We  have  seen  how  King's  Chapel  and 
Harvard  College  passed  into  Unitarian  hands.  The  same 
was  true  of  nearly  all  the  old  Puritan  churches.  The  First 
Church  of  Boston,  John  Cotton's,  became  Unitarian;  so 
did  the  Second  Church,  which  throughout  their  lives  the 
Mathers  had  held  as  such  a  stronghold  of  orthodoxy;  so 
did  various  other  New  England  churches. 

This  general  conquest  of  ecclesiastical  strongholds  by  The 
the  Unitarians  deeply  affected  the  whole  structure  of  Mas-  R°cs!*lt> 
sachusetts  society.     Elsewhere  in  America,  perhaps,  and 
surely  in  England,  Unitarianism  has  generally  presented 
itself  as  dissenting  dissent,  and  has  consequently  been  ex 
posed  to  the  kind  of  social  disfavor  which  aggressive  radi 
calism  is  apt  to  involve.     In  the  isolated  capital  of  isolated 
New  England,  on  the  other  hand,  where  two  centuries  had 
established  such  a  rigid  social  system,  the  capture  of  the 
old  churches  meant  the    capture,  too,  of  almost   every 
social  stronghold.     In  addition  to  its  inherent  charm,  the 


238       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

early  Unitarianism  of  Massachusetts  was  strengthened 
by  all  the  force  of  fashion :  whoever  clung  to  the  older  faith 
did  so  at  his  social  peril.  This  fact  is  nowhere  more  evi 
dent  than  in  the  history  of  New  England  letters.  Almost 
everybody  who  attained  literary  distinction  in  New  Eng 
land  during  the  nineteenth  century  was  either  a  Unitarian 
or  closely  associated  with  Unitarian  influences. 


TRANSCENDENTALISM 

REFERENCES 

GENERAL  AUTHORITIES:  O.  B.  Frothingham,  Transcendentalism  in 
New  England,  New  York:  Putnam,  1876. 

THE    DIAL 

The  Dial:  a  Magazine  for  Literature,  Philosophy,  and  Religion,  4  vols., 
Boston,  1844,  has  been  reprinted  by  the  Rowfant  Club,  of  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  in  sixteen  parts,  Cleveland,  1900-1903.  For  biography  and 
criticism,  see  G.  W.  Cooke,  An  Historical  and  Biographical  Introduction 
to  accompany  the  Dial  as  reprinted  in  Numbers  for  The  Rowfant  Club, 
2  vols.,  Cleveland:  The  Rowfant  Club,  1902. 

MARGARET   FULLER 

There  is  no  collected  edition  of  Margaret  Fuller's  works.  For  a  list  of 
the  separate  volumes,  which  are  now  out  of  print,  see  Foley,  100-101. 
The  life  of  Margaret  Fuller  has  been  written  by  Thomas  Wentworth 
Higginson  (Boston:  Hough  ton,  1884)  for  the  American  Men  of  Letters 
series.  Selections  from  Margaret  Fuller  are  in  Duyckinck,  II,  527— 
528;  Griswold's  Prose,  538—539;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VI,  520-527. 

BROOK   FARM 

Lindsay  Swift,  Brook  Farm:  Its  Members,  Scholars,  and  Visitors,  New 
York:  Macmillan,  1900. 

THOUGH  we  have  followed  the  oratory,  the  scholarship, 
and  the  Unitarianism  of  New  England  almost  to  the  pres 
ent  time,  there  has  been  reason  for  considering  them  be 
fore  the  other  phases  of  Renaissance  in  that  isolated  region 
where  the  nineteenth  century  produced  such  a  change. 
At  various  times  we  have  touched  on  the  fact  that  the 
period  from  1798  to  1832 — marked  in  England  by  every- 

239 


240      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

thing  between  the  Lyrical  Ballads  and  the  death  of  Scott, 
and  in  America  by  all  the  New  York  literature  from  Brock- 
den  Brown  to  Bryant — really  comprised  an  epoch  in  the 
literary  history  of  both  countries.  It  was  during  this 
period  that  the  three  phases  of  intellectual  life  which  we 
have  now  considered  fully  declared  themselves  in  New 
England;  and  in  these  years  nothing  else  of  equal  im 
portance  developed  there. 

The  very  mention  of  the  dates  in  question  should  remind 
us  that  throughout  the  English-speaking  world  the  revo 
lutionary  spirit  was  in  the  air.  The  essence  of  this  spirit 
is  its  fervid  faith  in  the  excellence  of  human  nature;  let 
men  be  freed  from  all  needless  control,  it  holds,  and  they 
may  be  trusted  to  work  out  their  salvation.  In  the  old 
world,  where  the  force  of  custom  had  been  gathering  for 
centuries,  the  speech  and  behavior  of  enfranchised  hu 
manity  were  apt  to  take  extravagant  form.  In  America, 
on  the  other  hand,  where  the  one  thing  which  had  been 
most  lacking  was  the  semblance  of  polite  civilization,  the 
very  impulse  which  in  Europe  showed  itself  destructive 
appeared  in  a  form  which  at  first  makes  it  hard  to  recog 
nize. 

One  need  not  ponder  long,  however,  to  feel,  even  in 
this  staid  new  America,  a  note  as  fresh  as  was  the  most 
extravagant  revolutionary  expression  in  Europe.  Our 
elaborately  rhetorical  oratory,  to  be  sure,  and  our  decorous 
scholarship,  seem  on  the  surface  far  from  revolutionary; 
and  so  does  the  gently  insignificant  literature  which  was 
contemporary  with  them  a  bit  further  south.  Yet  all 
alike  were  as  different  from  anything  which  America  had 
uttered  before  as  was  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth  or  of  Shel 
ley  from  what  had  previously  been  known  in  England. 


Transcendentalism  241 

When  we  came  to  the  Unitarianism  of  New  England,  the 
revolutionary  spirit  showed  itself  more  plainly.  The 
creed  of  Channing  was  of  a  kind  which,  except  for  the  un 
usual  chance  of  immedite  social  dominance,  might  almost 
at  once  have  revealed  its  disintegrant  character. 

But  the  enfranchised  human  nature  of  New  England 
at  first  expressed  itself  in  no  more  appalling  forms  than 
the  oratory  of  Webster  or  of  Everett;  than  the  Anthology 
Club,  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  and  the  North  American 
Review;  than  the  saintly  personality  and  the  hopeful 
exhortations  of  Channing.  Under  such  mildly  revolu 
tionary  influences  as  these  the  new  generation  of  Boston 
grew  up,  which  was  to  find  expression  a  few  years  later. 

In  all  such  considerations  as  this  there  is  danger  of  tak 
ing  consecutive  phases  of  development  too  literally.  To 
say  that  Unitarianism  caused  the  subsequent  manifesta 
tion  of  free  thought  in  New  England  would  be  too  much; 
but  no  one  can  doubt  that  the  world- wide  revolutionary 
spirit,  of  which  the  first  New  England  manifestation  was 
the  religious  revolution  effected  by  Unitarianism,  impelled 
the  following  generation  to  that  outbreak  of  intellectual 
and  spiritual  anarchy  which  is  generally  called  Tran 
scendentalism. 

This  queerly  intangible  Transcendentalism  can  best  be  what 
understood  by  recurring  to  the  text  of  Channing's  cele-   aenuHsm 
brated   sermon   on  Unitarian    Christianity.     "Prove  all  taught, 
things;  hold  fast  that  which  is  good."     Prove  all  things; 
do  not  accept  tradition;  scrutinize  whatever  presents  itself 
to  you.     If  evil,   cast  it   aside;    if  good,  cherish   it   as 
a  gift  of  God.     To  this  principle  Channing  adhered  all 
his  life;  but  Channing's  life  was  essentially  clerical;    it 
was  that  of  a  conscientious  and  disinterested  religious 


242      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

teacher,  whose  great  personal  authority  was  strengthened 
by  rare  purity  of  nature.  Educated  in  something  like  the 
old  school  of  theology,  he  generally  consecrated  his  devout 
boldness  of  thought  to  religious  matters. 

In  the  generation  which  grew  up  under  the  influence 

of  which  Channing  is  the  most  distinguished  type,  the 

Revoiu-        revolutionary  spirit  declared  itself  more  plainly.      The 

spirft'of       traditional  education  of  New   England  had  been  con- 

channing-s  fined  to  theology,  to  classics  and  mathematics,  and  to  the 

Doctrines.  -rii-iii-ir-  i      •  i  • 

Common  Law.  It  had  indulged  itself  in  speculative  phi 
losophy  only  so  far  as  that  philosophy  aided  theology  or 
jurisprudence.  Meanwhile  it  had  paid  little  attention  to 
the  modern  literature  even  of  England,  and  none  at  all  to 
that  of  other  languages  than  English.  Obviously  there 
were  many  things  in  this  world  which  intelligent  young 
Yankees  might  advantageously  prove,  with  a  view  to  dis 
covering  whether  they  were  worth  holding  fast.  To  say 
that  they  did  so  in  obedience  to  Channing's  specific  teach 
ings  would  be  mistaken;  but  certainly  in  obedience  to  the 
same  motive  which  induced  his  choice  of  that  Thessa- 
lonian  text,  the  more  active  and  vigorous  young  minds  of 
New  England  attacked,  wherever  they  could  find  them, 
the  records  of  human  wisdom.  They  wished  to  make 
up  their  minds  as  to  what  they  believed  about  everything 
and  to  do  so  with  no  more  deference  to  any  authority 
than  that  authority  seemed  rationally  to  deserve. 

The  name  commonly  given  to  the  unsystematized  results 
at  which  they  arrived — widely  differing  with  every  indi 
vidual — is  apt.  However  they  differed,  these  impulsive 
and  untrained  philosophical  thinkers  of  renascent  New 
England  were  idealists.  With  the  aid  of  reading  as  wide 
as  their  resources  would  allow,  they  endeavored  to  give 


Transcendentalism  243 

themselves  an  account  of  what  the  universe  really  means. 
They  became  aware  that  our  senses  perceive  only  the 
phenomena  of  life,  and  that  behind  these  phenomena, 
beyond  the  range  of  human  senses,  lurk  things  not  phe 
nomenal.  The  evolutionary  philosophy  which  has  fol-  idealism, 
lowed  theirs  holds  a  similar  conception;  it  divides  all  things 
into  two  groups, — the  phenomenal  or  knowable,  concern 
ing  which  our  knowledge  can  be  tested  by  observation  or 
experiment;  and  the  unknowable,  concerning  which  no 
observation  or  experiment  can  prove  anything.  With 
scientific  hardness  of  head  evolutionary  philosophy  conse 
quently  confines  its  energies  to  phenomena.  With  un 
scientific  enthusiasm  for  freedom  the  first  enfranchised 
thinkers  of  New  England  troubled  themselves  little  about 
phenomena,  and  devoted  their  energies  to  thinking  and 
talking  about  that  great  group  of  undemonstrable  truths 
which  must  always  transcend  human  experience.  In  so 
doing,  we  can  see  now,  they  followed  an  instinct  innate  in 
their  race.  They  were  descended  from  two  centuries  of 
Puritanism;  and  though  the  Puritans  exerted  their 
philosophic  thought  within  dogmatically  fixed  limits, 
they  were  intense  idealists  too.  Their  whole  tempera 
mental  energy  was  concentrated  in  efforts  definitely  to 
perceive  absolute  truths  quite  beyond  the  range  of  any 
earthly  senses.  The  real  distinction  between  the  Puritan 
idealists  and  the  Transcendental  idealists  of  the  nineteenth 
century  proves  little  more  than  that  the  latter  discarded  all 
dogmatic  limit.  Obey  yourself,  they  said,  and  you  need 
have  no  fear.  All  things  worth  serious  interest  transcend 
human  experience;  but  a  trustworthy  clew  to  them  is  to  be 
found  in  the  unfathomable  excellence  of  human  minds, 
souls,  and  spirits. 


244      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

Though  very  possibly  no  single  Transcendentalist 
would  have  accepted  so  baldly  stated  a  creed,  some  such 
system  may  be  conceived  as  the  ideal  toward  which 
Transcendentalists  generally  tended.  With  a  temper 
which,  however  it  began,  soon  developed  into  this  hope 
ful,  impalpable  philosophy,  the  more  ardent  youths  who 
grew  up  in  Boston  when  its  theology  was  dominated  by 
Unitarianism,  and  when  its  scholarship  was  at  last  so 
enlarged  as  to  include  the  whole  range  of  human  learning, 
faced  whatever  human  records  they  could  find,  to  prove 
and  to  hold  fast  those  which  were  good. 

Three  The  influences  thus  brought  to  bear  on  New  England 

were  almost  innumerable,  but  among  them  two  or  three 
were  specially  evident.  The  most  important  was  prob 
ably  German  thought,  at  a  time  when  German  philosophy 
was  most  metaphysical  and  German  literature  most  ro 
mantic.  This,  indeed,  had  had  great  influence  on  con 
temporary  England.  No  two  men  of  letters  in  the  nine 
teenth  century  more  evidently  affected  English  thought 
than  Coleridge  and  Carlyle ;  and  both  were  saturated  with 
German  philosophy.  To  New  England  these  influences 
swiftly  spread.  In  1800,  it  has  been  said,  hardly  a  Ger 
man  book  could  be  found  in  Boston.  Before  Channing 
died,  in  1842,  you  could  find  in  Boston  few  educated  people 
who  could  not  talk  about  German  philosophy,  German 
literature,  and  German  music.*  Another  thing  which 
appears  very  strongly  in  Transcendental  writings  is  the 
influence  of  French  eclectic  philosophy.  At  one  time  the 

*  George  Ripley  started  in  1838  a  series  of  Specimens  of  Foreign  Stand 
ard  Literature,  which  greatly  quickened  New  England  thought  by  intro 
ducing  translations  of  Jouffroy,  De  Wette,  Cousin,  Goethe,  Schiller,  and 
other  French  and  German  writers. 


Transcendentalism  245 

names  of  Jouffroy  and  Cousin  were  as  familiar  to  Yankee 
ears  as  were  those  of  Locke  or  Descartes  or  Kant.  Per 
haps  more  heartily  still  this  whole  school  of  enthusiastic 
seekers  for  truth  welcomed  that  wide  range  of  modern 
literature,  English  and  foreign  alike,  which  was  at  last 
thrown  open  by  such  scholars  as  Ticknor,  Longfellow,  and 
Lowell. 

For  this  almost  riotous  delight  in  pure  literature  there 
was  a  reason  now  long  past.  The  Puritans  generally  had 
such  conscientious  objections  to  fine  art  that  only  at  the 
moment  to  which  we  are  now  come  could  the  instinct  of 
native  New  England  for  culture  conscientiously  be  satis 
fied.  The  Renaissance  of  New  England,  therefore,  was 
in  no  aspect  more  truly  renascent  than  in  the  unfeigned 
eagerness  with  which  it  welcomed  the  newly  discovered 
fine  arts.  The  Transcendental  youth  of  New  England 
delighted  in  excellent  modern  literature  and  music  as 
unaffectedly  as  fifteenth-century  Italians  delighted  in  the 
freshly  discovered  manuscripts  of  classic  Greek. 

In  one  way  or  another  this  Transcendental  movement  The  Dial, 
affected  almost  all  the  ardent  natures  of  New  England 
from  1825  to  1840.  In  that  year  it  found  final  expression 
in  the  Dial,  a  quarterly  periodical  which  flourished  until 
1844.  Its  first  editor  was  among  the  most  characteristic 
figures  of  Transcendentalism.  This  was  a  woman,  re 
garded  in  her  own  time  as  the  prophetess  of  the  new  move 
ment,  and  prevented  by  a  comparatively  early  death  from 
struggling  through  days  when  the  movement  had  spent  its 
force. 

SARAH     MARGARET    FULLER    (1810-1850)    was    the  Margaret 
daughter  of   an    eccentric  but  very  assertive  citizen  of  * 
Cambridge.     Educated   by  her  father  according  to  his 


246      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

own  ideas,  she  was  much  overstimulated  in  youth.  She 
became  editor  of  the  Dial  in  1840.  In  1842  she  relin 
quished  the  editorship  to  Emerson,  and  removed  to  New 
York.  Horace  Greeley,  whose  sympathy  with  New  Eng 
land  reformers  was  always  encouraging,  had  invited  her 
to  become  the  literary  critic  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 
A  little  later  she  strayed  to  Italy,  where,  in  the  revolu 
tionary  times  of  1847,  she  married  a  gentleman  named 
Ossoli,  an  Italian  patriot  some  years  younger  than 
herself.  She  was  in  Rome  during  the  siege  of  1848,  and 
two  years  later  started  for  America  with  her  husband, 
virtually  an  exile,  and  her  child.  The  ship  on  which 
they  were  journeying  was  wrecked  off  Fire  Island;  all 
three  were  lost.  In  1839  Margaret  Fuller  had  translated 
Eckermann's  Conversations  with  Goethe;  later  she  pub 
lished  Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  (1845)  and 
Papers  on  Literature  and  Art  (1846).  And,  as  we  have 
seen,  she  was  the  first  editor  of  the  Dial. 

The  precise  purpose  of  the  Dial  is  hard  to  state;  it 
belongs  with  that  little  company  of  short-lived  periodicals 
which  now  and  then  endeavor  to  afford  everybody  a  full 
opportunity  to  say  anything.  The  deepest  agreement  of 
Transcendentalism  was  in  the  conviction  that  the  individ 
ual  has  a  natural  right  to  believe  for  himself  and  freely 
to  express  his  belief.  In  a  community  so  dominated  by 
tradition  as  New  England,  meanwhile,  a  community  of 
which  the  most  characteristic  periodical  up  to  this  time 
had  been  the  North  American  Review,  freedom  of  speech 
in  print,  though  not  theoretically  denied,  was  hardly  prac 
ticable.  With  a  mission  little  more  limited  than  this  ideal 
of  freedom,  the  Dial  started.  "  I  would  not  have  it  too 
purely  literary,"  Emerson  wrote  to  Margaret  Fuller.  "  I 


Transcendentalism 


247 


wish  that  we  might  make  a  journal  so  broad  and  great 
in  its  survey  that  it  should  lead  the  opinion  of  this 
generation  on  every  great  interest  .  .  .  and  publish 
chapters  on  every  head  in  the  whole  art  of  living." 

Though  the  Dial  was  impractical,  never  circulated 
much,  and  within  four  years  came  to  a  hopeless  financial 
end,  its  pages  are  at  once  more  interesting  and  more  sen 
sible  than  tradition  has  repre 
sented  them.  Of  the  writers, 
to  be  sure,  few  have  proved 
immortal.  Bronson  Alcott 
and  Theodore  Parker  seem 
fading  with  Margaret  Fuller 
into  mere  memories;  and 
George  Ripley  has  become 
more  nebulous  still.  But  Tho- 
reau  was  of  the  company;  and 
so  was  Emerson,  who  bids  fair 
to  survive  the  rest  much  as 
Shakspere  has  survived  the 
other  Elizabethan  dramatists. 
Emerson,  Thoreau,  and  some  others  of  the  Transcen-  Minor 
dental  group  we  shall  consider  in  later  chapters ;  but  at  this  denuu 
point  we  must  very  briefly  glance  at  some  of  their  minor 
literary  contemporaries.  One  was  the  eccentric  JONES 
VERY  (1813-1880),  licensed  to  preach,  but  never  ordained, 
a  few  of  whose  poems  show  something  near  genius. 
Another  was  CHRISTOPHER  PEARSE  CRANCH  (1813-1892), 
painter  and  poet,  whose  Last  of  the  Huggermuggers  (1856) 
used  to  be  a  favorite  book  with  children.  Larger  figures 
in  the  group  were  WILLIAM  HENRY  CHANNING  (1810-1884) 
and  WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING,  the  younger  (1818- 


248      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

1891);   yet  neither  is    generally  remembered  very    dis- 
'tinctly.     They  were  nephews  of  the  Unitarian  apostle; 
and  one  of  them  was  the  author  of  the  familiar  line, 

"  If  my  bark  sinks,  'tis  to  another  sea." 

Far  more  noteworthy  is  the  Reverend  JAMES  FREEMAN 
CLARKE  (1810-1888),  pastor  from  1841  until  1888  of  the 
Church  of  the  Disciples,  in  Boston,  a  potent  advocate 
of  antislavery,  a  stout  supporter  of  all  rational  measures 
of  reform,  a  fearless  theologian,  and  author,  among  other 
writings,  of  Ten  Great  Religions  (1871).  His  contribu 
tions  to  the  Dial  are  chiefly  in  verse,  a  fact  which  is  deeply 
characteristic  of  the  period.  People  who  were  later  apt 
to  express  themselves  in  prose  were  then  moved  to  write 
in  verse,  usually  ephemeral.  Among  them  were  Miss 
Elizabeth  Peabody,  Frederic  Henry  Hedge,  and  Orestes 
Brownson.  For  our  purpose  we  need  mention  no  more 
names.  These  people  lived  and  helped  to  make  the 
Transcendental  movement  possible ;  what  they  wrote  did 
not  much  affect  the  history  of  pure  letters.  Above  these 
rises  Emerson,  a  Transcendentalist  with  a  lasting  mes 
sage.  But  to  him  we  shall  turn  in  our  next  chapter. 

That  the  Dial  shows  Emerson's  relation  to  his  fellow 
Transcendentalists  is  perhaps  what  now  makes  it  most 
significant.  No  eminent  literary  figure  can  grow  into 
existence  without  a  remarkable  environment,  and  the 
pages  of  the  Dial  gradually  reveal  the  rather  vigorous  en 
vironment  of  Emerson's  most  active  years.  This  vigor, 
however,  appears  more  plainly  in  the  earlier  numbers, 
which,  merely  as  literature,  are  often  unexpectedly 
good.  As  you  turn  the  pages  of  the  later  numbers  you 
feel  that  the  thought  tends  to  grow  more  vague;  the  kinds 


Transcendentalism 


249 


of  reform  grow  more  various  and  wilder;  and,  above  all, 
the  tendency,  so  fatal  to  periodical  literature,  of  running 
to  inordinate  length,  becomes  more  and  more  evident. 
From  beginning  to  end,  however,  the  Dial  is  fresh  in  feel 
ing,  wide  in  scope,  earnest  in  its  search  for  truth,  and  less 


BROOK    FARM. 


eccentric  than  you  would  have  thought  possible.  For  all 
its  ultimate  failure,  it  leaves  a  final  impression  not  only  of 
hopefulness,  but  of  sanity. 

Though  the  Dial  had  little  positive  cohesion,  its  writers  its  spirit, 
and  all  the  Transcendentalists,  of  whom  we  may  take  them 
as  representative,  were  almost  at  one  as  ardent  opponents 
of  lifeless  traditions.  Generally  idealists,  they  were  stirred 
to  emotional  fervor  by  their  detestation  of  any  stiffening 
orthodoxy,  even  though  that  orthodoxy  were  so  far  from 
dogmatic  as  Unitarianism.  And  naturally  passing  from 
things  of  the  mind  and  the  soul  to  things  of  that  palpable 
part  of  human  nature,  the  body,  they  found  themselves 
generally  eager  to  alter  the  affairs  of  this  world  for  the 


'250      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

The  better.     If  any  one  word  could  certainly  arouse  their  sym- 

advocatcd  pathetic  enthusiasm,  it  was  the  word  "reform."  Two 
by  the  Dial,  distinct  reforms  the  Dial  fervently  advocated.  The  more 
specific,  which  reached  its  highest  development  later,  was 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  a  measure  important  enough  in 
the  intellectual  history  of  New  England  to  deserve  separate 
discussion.*  The  more  general,  which  developed,  flour 
ished,  and  failed  decidedly  before  the  antislavery  move 
ment  became  a  political  force,  was  that  effort  to  reform 
the  structure  of  society  which  found  expression  in  the 
community  of  Brook  Farm. 

Brook  In  1841,  a  number  of  people, — all  in  sympathy  with  the 

Transcendentalists,  and  most  of  them  writers  for  the  Dial, 
—bought  a  farm  in  West  Roxbury,  Massachusetts,  ten 
or  twelve  miles  from  Boston.  Here  they  proposed  to 
found  a  community,  where  everybody  should  work  to 
support  the  establishment  and  where  there  should  be 
plenty  of  leisure  for  scholarly  and  edifying  pleasure. 
Incidentally  there  was  to  be  a  school,  where  children  were 
to  help  in  the  work  of  the  community.  The  experiment 
began.  At  least  during  its  earlier  years,  Brook  Farm 
attracted  considerable  notice,  and  the  sympathetic  atten 
tion  of  many  people  afterward  more  eminent  than  its 
actual  members.  Hawthorne  came  thither  for  a  while, 
and  his  Blithedale  Romance  is  an  idealized  picture  of 
the  establishment.  Emerson,  though  never  an  actual 
member,  was  there  off  and  on,  always  with  shrewd, 
kindly  interest.  Thither,  too,  occasionally  came  Margaret 
Fuller,  whom  some  have  supposed  to  be  the  original  of 
Hawthorne's  Zenobia. 

Brook  Farm,  of  course,  was  only  a  Yankee  expression 

*  See  Chapter  viii. 


Transcendentalism  251 

of  the  world-old  impulse  to  get  rid  of  evil  by  establishing 
life  on  principles  different  from  those  of  economic  law. 
From  earliest  times,  theoretical  writers  have  proposed 
various  forms  of  communistic  existence  as  a  solution  of 
the  problems  presented  by  the  sin  and  suffering  of  human 
beings  in  any  dense  population.  The  principles  definitely 
adopted  by  the  Brook  Farm  community  in  1844  were 
those  of  Fourier,  a  French  philosopher,  who  sketched  out 
a  rather  elaborate  ideal  society.  The  basis  of  his  system 
was  that  people  should  separate  themselves  into  small 
phalanxes,  each  mutually  helpful  and  self-supporting. 
This  conception  so  commended  itself  to  the  Brook 
Farmers  that,  at  an  expense  decidedly  beyond  their 
means,  they  actually  built  a  phalanstery,  or  communal 
residence,  as  nearly  as  might  be  on  the  lines  which 
Fourier  suggested. 

Brook  Farm  inevitably  went  to  pieces.  Its  members 
were  not  skilled  enough  in  agriculture  to  make  farming 
pay;  and,  although  after  the  Dial  stopped  they  managed  Disintegra 
te  publish  several  numbers  of  a  similar  magazine  called 
The  Harbinger,  they  found  manual  labor  too  exhausting 
to  permit  much  activity  of  mind.  They  also  discerned 
with  more  and  more  certainty  that  when  you  get  together 
even  so  small  a  company  of  human  beings  as  are  com 
prised  in  one  of  Fourier's  phalanxes,  you  cannot  avoid 
uncomfortable  incompatibility  of  temper.  In  1847  their 
new  phalanstery,  which  had  cost  ten  thousand  dollars 
and  had  almost  exhausted  their  funds,  was  burned  down; 
it  was  not  insured,  and  before  long  the  whole  community 
had  to  break  up. 

The  Dial  had  come  to  its  end  three  years  before.    Tran 
scendentalism  proved  unable  long  to   express   itself  in 


252      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

any  coherent  form.  Yet  many  of  those  who  were  con 
nected  with  Brook  Farm  never  relapsed  into  common 
place.  GEORGE  RIPLEY  (1802-1880),  the  chief  spirit  of 
the  community,  became  the  literary  critic  of  the  New 
York  Tribune,  with  which  he  retained  his  connection  to 
the  end  of  a  long  and  honorable  life.  CHARLES  ANDERSON 

DANA  (1819-1897),  also  for  a 
while  connected  with  the  Trib 
une,  finally  became  editor  of 
the  New  York  Sun.  GEORGE 
WILLIAM  CURTIS  (1824-1892), 
who  became  associated  with 
the  periodicals  published  by 
the  Harpers,  maintained  more 
of  the  purely  ideal  quality  of 
his  early  days.  JOHN  SULLI 
VAN  DWIGHT  (1813-1839)  re 
turned  to  Boston,  where,  as 
editor  of  the  Journal  of  Music, 
he  did  rather  more  than  any 
one  else  to  make  the  city  a 
vital  centre  of  musical  art.  And  so  in  various  ways  Brook 
Farm  faded  into  the  memory  of  an  earnest,  sincere, 
beautiful  effort  to  make  human  life  better  by  practising 
the  principles  of  ideal  truth. 

This  New  England  Transcendentalism  developed  most 
vigorously  in  those  years  when  the  intellectual  life  of 
New  York  was  embodied  in  the  Knickerbocker  school  of 
writers.  By  contrasting  those  two  neighboring  phases 
of  thought  we  can  see  how  unalterably  New  England  kept 
the  trace  of  its  Puritan  origin,  eagerly  aspiring  to  knowl 
edge  of  absolute  truth.  The  literature  of  the  Knicker- 


Transcendentalism  253 

bocker  school  was  never  more  than  a  literature  of  pleasure.  Summary. 
Even  the  lesser  literature  of  Transcendentalism,  not  to 
speak  of  its  permanent  phases,  constantly  and  earnestly 
aspired  to  be  a  literature  of  both  knowledge  and  power, 
seeking  in  the  eternities  for  new  ranges  of  truth  which 
should  broaden,  sweeten,  strengthen,  and  purify  mankind. 
In  brief,  the  Transcendentalism  of  New  England  was 
not,  like  that  of  Germany,  a  system  of  pure  philosophy. 
Nor  was  it,  like  that  of  England,  primarily  a  phase  of 
literature.  New  England  Transcendentalism  was  above 
all  a  revolution  in  conduct,  a  crusade  for  the  spontaneous 
expression  in  every  possible  form  of  that  individual 
human  nature  which  Calvinism  had  thought  deserving 
of  confinement  and  rebuke. 


VI 

RALPH    WALDO    EMERSON 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Works,  Riverside  Edition,  12  vols.,  Boston:  Hough  ton,  1883- 
1893.  A  new  ("Centenary")  edition,  with  additional  text  and  notes,  is 
now  being  published  (Boston:  Houghton). 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  *J.  E.  Cabot,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  a 
Memoir,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1887;  *O.  W.  Holmes,  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  Boston:  Houghton,  1885  (AML);  Richard  Garnett,  Li/e  of 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  London:  Scott,  1888  (GW);  Matthew  Arnold, 
"Emerson,"  in  Discourses  in  America;  J.  R.  Lowell,  "Emerson  the 
Lecturer,"  in  Lowell's  Works,  Riverside  Edition,  I,  349  ff. ;  J.  J.  Chap 
man,  "Emerson,  Sixty  Years  After,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  January-Febru 
ary,  1897,.  reprinted  in  Emerson  and  Other  Essays,  New  York:  Scribner, 
1898;  *Stedman,  Poets  of  America,  Chapter  v. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Garnett,  Life  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  pp.  i-xiv  (at 
the  end) ;  Foley,  80-85. 

SELECTIONS:  *Carpenter,  194-212;  Duyckinck,  II,  366-372;  Griswold, 
Prose,  442-446;  Griswold,  Poetry,  299-304;  Stedman,  90-101;  *Stedman 
and  Hutchinson,  VI,  128-166. 

As  time  passes,  it  grows  more  and  more  clear  that  by  far 
the  most  eminent  figure  among  the  Transcendentalists,  if 
not  indeed  in  all  the  literary  history  of  America,  was  RALPH 
WALDO  EMERSON  (1803-1882).  People  not  yet  past  mid 
dle  age  still  remember  his  figure,  which  so  beautifully  em 
bodied  the  gracious  dignity,  the  unpretentious  scope,  and 
the  unassuming  distinction  of  those  who  led  the  New 
Life.  England  Renaissance.  Born  at  Boston  and  descended 

from  a  long  line  of  ministers,  he  was  as  truly  a  New  Eng 
land  Brahmin  as  was  Cotton  Mather,  a  century  and  a  half 

254 


Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  255 

before.  His  father  was  minister  of  the  First  Church  of 
Boston,  already  Unitarian,  but  still  maintaining  unbroken 
the  organization  which  had  been  founded  by  John  Cotton 
at  the  settlement  of  the  town.  The  elder  Emerson  died 
early.  His  sons  were  brought  up  in  poverty;  but  they 
belonged  on  both  sides  to  that  hereditary  clerical  class 
whose  distinction  was  still  independent  of  so  material  an 
accident  as  fortune.  In  1821  Waldo  Emerson  graduated 
from  Harvard  College,  where,  as  his  "Notes  on  Life  and 
Letters  in  New  England"  record,  the  teaching  of  Edward 
Everett  was  filling  the  air  with  renascent  enthusiasm. 
After  graduation  Emerson  supported  himself  for  a  few 
years  by  school- teaching,  studying  meanwhile  his  hered 
itary  profession  of  divinity.  In  1829  he  was  made  col 
league  to  the  Reverend  Henry  Ware,  Jr.,  pastor  of  the 
Second  Church  in  Boston.  This  was  the  church  which 
had  remained  for  above  sixty  years  in  charge  of  the 
Mathers.  His  ministerial  career  thus  began  in  lineal 
succession  to  Cotton  Mather's  own.  Mr.  Ware,  infirm  in 
health,  soon  resigned;  and  before  Emerson  was  thirty 
years  old,  he  had  become  the  regular  minister  of  the  Second 
Church. 

Giving  up  his  pastorate  in  1832  because  he  was  "not 
interested  "  in  the  Lord's  Supper  and  so  thought  he  ought 
not  to  administer  the  communion,  he  supported  himself 
as  a  lecturer,  occasionally  preaching.  He  went  abroad 
for  a  year,  and  there  began  that  friendship  with  Carlyle 
which  resulted  in  their  lifelong  correspondence.  In  1836 
appeared  his  first  book,  Nature,  a  bewildering  but  stimu-  Early 
lating  expression  of  the  idealism  which  was  the  basis  of 
«his  philosophy.  In  1837  he  gave,  before  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  Society  of  Harvard  College,  his  celebrated  address 


256      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

on  "The  American  Scholar,"  of  which  the  closing 
sentences  are  among  the  most  articulate  assertions  of  his 
individualism : — 

"If  the  single  man  plant  himself  indomitably  on  his  instincts,  and 
there  abide,  the  huge  world  will  come  round  to  him.  Patience, — 
patience;  with  the  shades  of  all  the  good  and  great  for  company;  and 
for  solace  the  perspective  of  your  own  infinite  life;  and  for  work  the 
study  and  communication  of  principles,  the  making  those  instincts 
prevalent,  the  conversion  of  the  world.  Is  it  not  the  chief  disgrace 
in  the  world  not  to  be  an  unit; — not  to  be  reckoned  one  charac 
ter; — not  to  yield  that  peculiar  fruit  which  each  man  was  created 
to  bear,  but  to  be  reckoned  in  the  gross,  in  the  hundred,  or  the 
thousand,  of  the  party,  the  section,  to  which  we  belong;  and  our 
opinion  predicted  geographically,  as  the  north  or  the  south  ?  Not 
so,  brothers  and  friends, — please  God,  ours  shall  not  be  so.  We 
will  walk  on  our  own  feet;  we  will  work  with  our  own  hands;  we 
will  speak  our  own  minds.  The  study  of  letters  shall  no  longer  be  a 
name  for  pity,  for  doubt,  and  for  sensual  indulgence.  The  dread  of 
man  and  the  love  of  man  shall  be  a  wall  of  defence  and  a  wreath  of 
joy  around  all.  A  nation  of  men  will  for  the  first  time  exist,  because 
each  believes  himself  inspired  by  the  Divine  Soul  which  also  inspires 
all  men." 

The  next  year,  his  address  before  the  Divinity  School 
at  Cambridge  carried  his  gospel  of  individualism  to  a 
point  which  frightened  Harvard  theology  itself.  In  such 
a  spirit  he  went  on  lecturing  and  writing  all  his  life. 

Emerson's  work  is  so  individual  that  one  can  probably 
get  no  true  impression  of  it  without  reading  deeply  for 
one's  self.  As  one  thus  grows  familiar  with  him,  his  most 
characteristic  trait  begins  to  seem  one  which  in  a  certain 
sense  is  not  individual  at  all,  but  rather  is  common  to  all 
phases  of  lasting  literature.  Classical  immortality,  of 
course,  is  demonstrable  only  by  the  lapse  of  cumulating 


Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  257 

ages.  One  thing,  however,  seems  sure:  in  all  acknowl 
edged  classics,  there  proves  to  reside  a  vitality  which  as  the 
centuries  pass  shows  itself  less  and  less  conditioned  by  the 
human  circumstances  of  the  writers.  No  literary  expression 
was  ever  quite  free  from  historical  environment.  Homer 
— one  poet  or  many — belongs  to  the  heroic  age  of  Greece; 
Virgil,  or  Horace,  to  Augustan  Rome ;  Dante  to  the  Italy 
of  Guelphs  and  Ghibellines;  Shakspere  to  Elizabethan 
England.  But  take  at  random  any  page  from  any  of  these, 
and  you  will  find  something  so  broadly,  pervasively,  last 
ingly  human,  that  generation  after  generation  will  read 
it  with  no  sense  of  the  changing  epochs  which  have  passed 
since  the  man  who  spoke  this  word  and  the  men  for  Perma- 
whom  it  was  spoken  have  rested  in  immortal  slumber.  ™*ln™ 
In  the  work  of  Emerson,  whatever  its  final  value,  there  is  Emerson's 

•  -r-i  i  •  works. 

something  of  this  note.  Every  other  writer  at  whom  we 
have  glanced,  and  almost  every  other  at  whom  we  shall 
glance  hereafter,  demands  for  understanding  that  we 
revive  our  sympathy  with  the  fading  or  faded  conditions 
which  surrounded  his  conscious  life.  At  best  these 
other  works,  vitally  contemporaneous  in  their  own  days, 
grow  more  and  more  old-fashioned.  Emerson's  work, 
on  the  other  hand,  bids  fair  to  disregard  the  passing 
of  time ;  its  spirit  seems  little  more  conditioned  by  the  cir 
cumstances  of  nineteenth-century  Concord  or  Boston  than 
Homer's  was  by  the  old  ^Egean  breezes. 

In  form,  however,  Emerson's  work  seems  almost  as 
certainly  local.  Broadly  speaking,  it  falls  into  two  classes, 
— essays  and  poems.*  The  essays  are  generally  com- 

*  Emerson's  writings,  as  they  have  been  gathered  into  the  twelve  vol 
umes  of  the  Riverside  edition,  comprise:  Nature,  etc.,  1836;  Essays, 
1841,  1844;  Representative  Men,  1850;  English  Traits,  1856;  The  Con- 


258      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 


Their  Form  post'd  of  materials  which  he  collected  for  purposes  of  lec 
turing.  His  astonishing  lack  of  method  is  familiar;  he 
would  constantly  make  note  of  any  idea  which  occurred 
to  him;  and  when  he  wished  to  give  a  lecture,  he  would 
huddle  together  as  many  of  his  notes  as  should  fill  the 
assigned  time.  But  though  this  bewildering  lack  of  sys 
tem  for  a  moment  disguised  the  true  character  of  his  essays, 
the  fact  that  these  essays  were  so 
often  delivered  as  lectures  should 
remind  us  of  what  they  really  are. 
The  Yankee  lecturers,  of  whom 
Emerson  was  the  most  eminent, 
were  only  half-secularized  preach 
ers, — men  who  stood  up  and  talked 
to  eagerly  attentive  audiences,  who 
were  disposed  at  once  to  respect 
the  authority  of  their  teachers,  to 
be  on  the  look-out  for  error,  and  to 
go  home  with  a  sense  of  edification. 
Emerson's  essays,  in  short,  prove 

to  be  a  development  from  the  endless  sermons  with  which 
for  generations  his  ancestors  had  been  accustomed  to 
"entertain  the  People  of  God."  In  much  the  same  way, 
Emerson's  poems,  for  all  their  oddity  of  form,  prove  on 
consideration  to  possess  many  qualities  for  which  an  ortho 
dox  mind  would  have  sought  expression  in  hymns.  They 
are  designed  not  so  much  to  set  forth  human  emotion 
or  to  give  aesthetic  delight  as  to  stimulate  moral  or  spiritual 

duct  of  Lije,  1860;  Society  and  Solitude,  1870;  Letters  and  Social  ^Aims, 
1876;  Poems,  1876;  Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches  (1883-84);  Mis 
cellanies  (1883-84);  The  Natural  History  of  Intellect  and  Other  Papers, 
1893.  The  volumes  after  which  the  dates  are  in  parentheses  contain 
articles  not  previously  published. 


Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  259 

ardor.  All  Emerson's  individualism  could  not  prevent  his 
being  a  good  old  inbred  Yankee  preacher.  A  Yankee 
preacher  of  unfettered  idealism,  one  may  call  him;  better 
still,  its  seer,  its  prophet. 

Idealism,  of  course,  is  ancestrally  familiar  to  any  race  of  Emerson': 
Puritan  origin.  That  life  is  a  fleeting  manifestation  of  un 
fathomable  realities  which  lie  beyond  it,  that  all  we  see  and 
all  we  do  and  all  we  know  are  merely  symbols  of  things 
unseen,  unactable,  unknowable,  had  been  preached  to 
New  England  from  the  beginning.  But  Emerson's  ideal 
ism  soared  far  above  that  of  the  Puritan  fathers.  Their 
effort  was  constantly  to  reduce  unseen  eterfiities  to  a  system 
as  rigid  as  that  of  the  physical  universe.  To  Emerson, 
on  the  other  hand,  all  systems  grouped  themselves 
with  the  little  facts  of  every-day  existence  as  merely 
symbols  of  unspeakable,  unfathomable,  transcendental 
truth.  There  is  forever  something  beyond;  you  may  call 
it  Nature,  you  may  call  it  Over-Soul;  each  name  becomes 
a  fresh  limitation,  a  mere  symbolic  bit  of  this  human  lan 
guage  of  ours.  The  essential  thing  is  not  what  you  call  the 
everlasting  eternities;  it  is  that  you  shall  never  cease, 
simply  and  reverently,  with  constantly  living  interest,  to 
recognize  and  to  adore  them. 

Would  you  strive  to  reconcile  one  with  another  the 
glories  of  this  eternity?  strive,  with  your  petty  human 
powers,  to  prove  them  consistent  things  ? — 

"Why  should  you  keep  your  head  over  your  shoulder?  Why  drag 
about  this  corpse  of  your  memory,  lest  you  contradict  somewhat  you 
have  stated  in  this  or  that  public  place?  Suppose  you  should  con 
tradict  yourself:  what  then?  ...  A  foolish  consistency  is  the 
hobgoblin  of  little  minds,  adored  by  little  statesmen  and  philosophers 
and  divines.  With  consistency  a  great  soul  has  simply  nothing  to  do. 


260      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

He  may  as  well  concern  himself  with  the  shadow  on  the  wall.  Speak 
what  you  think  now  in  hard  words  and  to-morrow  speak  what  to 
morrow  thinks  in  hard  words  again,  though  it  contradict  everything 
you  have  said  to-day.  .  .  .  Pythagoras  was  misunderstood,  and 
Socrates,  and  Jesus,  and  Luther,  and  Copernicus,  and  Galileo,  and 
Newton,  and  every  pure  and  wise  spirit  that  ever  took  flesh.  To  be 
great  is  to  be  misunderstood. " 

s«if-  In  Emerson's  calm  impatience  of  philosophic  system 

Reliance.  tnere  js  a  fresh  touch  of  his  unhesitating  self-reliance. 
"See,"  he  seems  to  bid  you,  "and  report  what  you  see  as 
truly  as  language  will  let  you.  Then  concern  yourself  no 
more  as  to  what  men  shall  say  of  your  seeing  or  of  your 
saying."  For  even  though  what  you  perceive  be  a  gleam 
of  absolute  truth,  the  moment  you  strive  to  focus  its  radi 
ance  in  the  little  terms  of  human  language,  you  must  limit 
the  diffusive  energy  which  makes  it  radiant.  So  even 
though  your  gleams  be  in  themselves  consistent  one  with 
another,  your  poor  little  vehicle  of  words,  conventional 
and  faint  symbols  with  which  mankind  has  learned  to 
blunder,  must  perforce  dim  each  gleam  by  a  limitation 
itself  irreconcilable  with  truth.  Language  at  best  was 
made  to  phrase  what  later  philosophy  has  called  the 
knowable,  and  what  interested  Emerson  surged  infinitely 
throughout  the  unknowable  realms. 

Take  that  famous  passage  from  his  essay  in  Society  and 
Solitude,  on  "Civilization": — 

"  'It  was  a  great  instruction,'  said  a  saint  in  Cromwell's  war/ that 
the  best  courages  are  but  beams  of  the  Almighty.'  Hitch  your 
wagon  to  a  star.  Let  us  not  fag  in  paltry  works  which  serve  our  pot 
and  bag  alone.  Let  us  not  lie  and  steal.  No  god  will  help.  We 
shall  find  all  their  teams  going  the  other  way, — Charles's  Wain, 
Great  Bear,  Orion,  Leo,  Hercules  ;  every  god  will  leave  us.  Work 


Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  261 

rather  for  those  interests  which  the  divinities  honor  and  promote — 
justice,  love,  freedom,  knowledge,  utility. " 

Though  imperfect  in  melody,  this  seems  an  almost  lyric 
utterance  of  something  which  all  men  may  know  and  which 
no  man  may  define.  "Hitch  your  wagon  to  a  star"  has  -Hitch 
flashed  into  the  idiom  of  our  speech;  but  if  you  try  to 
translate  it  into  visual  terms  you  must  find  it  a  mad  meta 
phor.  The  wagon  is  no  real  rattling  vehicle  of  the  Yankee 
country,  squalid  in  its  dingy  blue;  nor  is  the  star  any  such 
as  ever  twinkled  through  the  clear  New  England  nights. 
No  chain  ever  forged  could  reach  far  on  the  way  from  a 
Concord  barn  to  Orion.  Yet  behind  the  homely,  incom 
plete  symbol  there  is  a  thought,  an  emotion,  flashing  swifter 
than  ever  ray  of  starry  light,  and  so  binding  together  the 
smallest  things  and  the  greatest  that  for  an  instant  we  may 
feel  them  both  alike  in  magnitude,  each  alike  mere  sym 
bols  of  illimitable  truth  beyond,  and  both  together  sig 
nificant  only  because  for  an  instant  we  have  snatched  them 
together,  almost  at  random,  from  immeasurable  eternity. 

For  phenomena,  after  all,  are  only  symbols  of  the  eterni 
ties,  and  words  at  their  best  are  trivial,  fleeting,  conven 
tional  symbols  of  these  mere  phenomena : — 

"Good  as  is  discourse,  silence  is  better,  and  shames  it.  The 
length  of  the  discourse  indicates  the  distance  of  thought  betwixt  the 
speaker  and  the  hearer.  If  they  were  at  a  perfect  understanding  in 
any  part,  no  words  would  be  necessary  thereon.  If  at  one  in  all  parts, 
no  words  would  be  suffered. " 

So  Emerson  disdained  words;  and  hardly  cared  how 
he  set  forth  the  shifting  aspects  of  truth,  as  they  passed 
before  his  untiring  earthly  vision. 

A  dangerous  feat,  this.     Any  one  may  attempt  it,  but 


262       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

most  of  us  would  surely  fail,  uttering  mere  jargon  wherein 
others  could  discern  little  beyond  our  several  limitations. 
As  we  contemplate  Emerson,  our  own  several  infirmities 
accordingly  reveal  to  us  more  and  more  clearly  how  true  a 
.  seer  he  was.  With  more  piercing  vision  than  is  granted 
to  common  men,  he  really  perceived  in  the  eternities  those 
living  facts  and  lasting  thoughts  which,  with  all  the  cool 
serenity  of  his  intellectual  assurance,  he  rarely  troubled 
himself  intelligibly  to  phrase. 

Sometimes  these  perceptions  fairly  fell  within  the  range 
of  language;  and  of  language  at  such  moments  Emerson 
had  wonderful  mastery.  Open  his  essays  at  random. 
On  one  page  you  shall  find  phrases  like  this : — 

"By  the  same  fire,  vital,  consecrating,  celestial,  which  burns  until 
it  shall  dissolve  all  things  into  the  waves  and  surges  of  an  ocean  of 
light,  we  see  and  know  each  other. " 

On  another,  which  deals  with  Friendship,  comes  this 
fragment  of  an  imaginary  letter: — 

"I  am  not  very  wise;  my  moods  are  quite  attainable,  and  I  respect 
thy  genius;  it  is  to  me  as  yet  unfathomed;  yet  dare  I  not  presume  in 
thee  a  perfect  intelligence  of  me,  and  so  thou  art  to  me  a  delicious 
torment." 

And  there  are  hundreds  of  such  felicitous  passages. 
Often,  however,  Emerson  was  face  to  face  with  perceptions 
for  which  language  was  never  framed;  and  then  comes 
such  half-inspired  jargon  as  that  little  verse  which  pre 
ludes  the  essay  on  "History:  " 

"I  am  the  owner  of  the  sphere, 
Of  the  seven  stars,  and  the  solar  year, 
Of  Caesar's  hand,  and  Plato's  brain, 
Of  Lord  Christ's  heart,  and  Shakespeare's  strain." 


Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  263 

So  long  as  what  he  said  seemed  for  the  moment  true,  he 
cared  for  little  else. 

Again,  one  grows  to  feel  more  and  more  in  Emerson  a  Emerson's 
trait  surprising  in  any  man  so  saturated  with  ideal  philoso-  ti°nearnd 
phy.     As  the  story  of  Brook  Farm  indicated,  the  Tran-  Good 

Sense. 

scendental  movement  generally  expressed  itself  in  ways 
which,  whatever  their  purity,  beauty,  or  sincerity,  had  not 
the  virtue  of  common  sense.  In  the  slang  of  our  day,  the 
Transcendentalists  were  cranks.  With  Emerson  the  case 
was  different;  in  the  daily  conduct  of  his  private  life,  as 
well  as  in  the  articulate  utterances  which  pervade  even  his 
most  eccentric  writings,  you  will  always  find  him,  despite 
the  vagaries  of  his  ideal  philosophy,  a  shrewd,  sensible 
Yankee,  full  of  a  quiet,  repressed,  but  ever  present  sense 
of  humor  which  prevented  him  from  overestimating  him 
self,  and  compelled  him  even  when  dealing  with  spiritual 
phenomena  to  be  relatively  practical. 

He  did  not  phrase  his  discoveries  in  the  sacred  mysteries 
of  dogma.  He  was  rather  a  canny,  honest  Yankee  gen 
tleman,  who  mingled  with  his  countrymen,  and  taught 
them  as  well  as  he  could;  who  felt  a  kindly  humor  when 
other  people  agreed  with  him,  and  troubled  himself  little 
when  they  disagreed;  who  hitched  his  wagon  to  star 
after  star,  but  never  really  confused  the  stars  with  the 
wagon. 

And  so  descending  to  Concord  earth,  we  find  in  him  a  Effect  up- 
trait  very  characteristic  of  the  period  when  he  happened  theN^°f 

to  live,  and  one  at  which  he  himself  would  have  been  the  Knowl 
edge  of 
first  good-humoredly  to  smile.     He  was  born  just  when  Phiios- 

the  Renaissance  of  New  England  was  at  hand,  when  at  °PJ7  an(l 

Letters. 

last  theology,  classics,  and  law  were  seen  not  to  be  the 
only  basis  of  the  human  intellect,  when  all  philosophy  and 


204      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

letters  were  finally  opening  to  New  England  knowledge. 
With  all  his  contemporaries  he  revelled  in  this  new  world 
of  human  record  and  expression.  To  the  very  end  he 
never  lost  a  consequent,  exuberantly  boyish  trick  of 
dragging  in  allusions  to  all  sorts  of  personages  and  matters 
familiar  to  him  only  by  name.  Take  a  sentence  at 
random  from  his  essay  on  "  Self-Reliance : "  "Pythagoras 
was  misunderstood,  and  Socrates,  and  Jesus,  and  Luther, 
and  Copernicus,  and  Galileo,  and  Newton."  These 
great  names  he  mentions  writh  all  the  easy  assurance 
of  intimacy;  he  could  hardly  speak  more  familiarly  of 
seven  Concord  farmers  idling  in  a  row  on  some  sunny 
bench.  Turn  to  him  anywhere,  and  in  any  dozen  pages 
you  will  find  allusions  as  complacent  as  these,  and  about 
as  accidental,  to  the  bewilderingly  various  names  at  which 
his  encyclopedia  chanced  to  open.  He  had,  in  short,  all 
the  juvenile  pedantry  of  renascent  New  England  at  a  mo 
ment  when  Yankees  had  begun  to  know  the  whole  range 
of  literature  by  name,  and  when  they  did  not  yet  distinguish 
between  such  knowledge  and  the  unpretentious  mastery 
of  scholarship. 

It  is  now  over  twenty  years  since  Emerson's  life 
gently  faded  away,  and  it  is  a  full  sixty  since  his  eager 
preaching  or  prophecy  of  individualistic  idealism  stirred 
renascent  New  England  to  its  depths.  We  have  been 
trying  to  guess  what  Emerson  may  mean  in  permanent 
literature.  To  understand  what  he  means  historically, 
we  must  remind  ourselves  again  of  the  conditions  which 
surrounded  his  maturity.  When  he  came  to  the  pulpit 
of  the  Second  Church  of  Boston,  the  tyranny  of  custom, 
at  least  in  theoretical  matters,  was  little  crushed.  Heretical 
though  Unitarianism  was,  it  remained  in  outward  form  a 


Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  265 

dominant  religion.  Statesmanship  and  scholarship,  too, 
were  equally  fixed  and  rigid;  and  so,  to  a  degree  hardly 
conceivable  to-day,  was  the  structure  of  society.  Even 
to-day  untrammelled  freedom  of  thought,  unrestrained 
assertion  of  individual  belief,  sometimes  demands  grave 
self-sacrifice.  In  Emerson's  day  it  demanded  heroic 
spirit. 

To  say  that  Emerson's  lifelong  heroism  won  us  what 
moral  and  intellectual  freedom  we  now  possess  would  be 
to  confuse  the  man  with  the  movement  in  which  he  is  the 
greatest  figure.  As  the  years  pass,  however,  we  begin  to 
understand  that  no  other  American  writings  record  that 
movement  half  so  vitally  as  his.  We  may  not  care  for 
some  of  the  things  he  said ;  we  may  not  find  sympathetic 
the  temper  in  which  he  uttered  them;  but  we  cannot  deny 
that  when,  for  two  hundred  years,  intellectual  tyranny  had 
kept  the  native  American  mind  cramped  within  the  limits 
of  tradition,  Emerson  fearlessly  stood  forth  as  the  chief  His 
representative  of  that  movement  which  asserted  the  right  Courage- 
of  every  individual  to  think,  to  feel,  to  speak,  to  act  for 
himself,  confident  that  so  far  as  each  acts  in  sincerity  good 
shall  ensue. 

To  many  he  still  remains  preeminently  "the  friend  and 
aider  of  those  who  would  live  in  the  spirit."  And  indeed, 
whoever  believes  in  individualism  must  always  respect  in 
Emerson  a  living  prophet.  Just  as  surely,  those  who  be 
lieve  in  obedience  to  authority  must  always  lament  the 
defection  from  their  ranks  of  a  spirit  which,  whatever  its 
errors,  even  they  must  admit  to  have  been  brave,  honest, 
serene,  and  essentially  pure  with  all  that  purity  which  is 
the  deepest  grace  of  ancestral  New  England. 


VII 

THE    LESSER    MEN    OF    CONCORD 

REFERENCES 
BRONSON  ALCOTT 

WORKS:  There  is  no  collected  edition  of  Alcott's  works,  which  were 
published  by  Roberts  Brothers,  Boston.  For  a  list  of  them,  see  Foley. 

.BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  F.  B.  Sanborn  and  W.  T.  Harris,  Memoir, 
2  vols.,  Boston:  Roberts  Brothers,  1893. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  3. 
SELECTIONS:  Stedman,  77-79;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VI,  17-22. 

THOREAU 

WORKS:  Works,  Riverside  Edition,  n  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1899- 
1900. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Henry  David  Thoreau, 
Boston:  Houghton,  1882  (AML);  H.  S.  Salt,  Li/e  of  Henry  David  Thoreau, 
London:  Scott,  1896  (GW);  Lowell,  "Thoreau,"  in  Lowell's  Works, 
Riverside  Edition,  I,  361  ff;  Emerson,  "Thoreau,"  in  Emerson's  Works, 
Riverside  Edition,  X,  421  ff;  Stevenson,  "Thoreau,"  in  Stevenson's 
Works,  Thistle  Edition,  XIV,  116  ff. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  291-292;  Salt,  Thoreau,  pp.  i-x  (at  the  end); 
S.  A.  Jones,  Bibliography  of  Henry  David  Thoreau,  New  York:  Pri 
vately  printed,  1894. 

SELECTIONS:  *Carpenter,  343-357;  Duyckinck,  II,  655-656;  Sted 
man,  182-183;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VII,  323-336. 

CONCORD,  Massachusetts,  until  Emerson's  time  cele 
brated  as  the  place  where  the  embattled  farmers  made  their 
stand  against  the  British  regulars  in  1775,  is  now  even 
better  known  as  the  Yankee  village  where  for  half  a  cen 
tury  Emerson  lived,  and  gathered  about  him  a  little  group 
of  the  intellectually  and  spiritually  enlightened.  Of  the 

266 


Lesser  Men  of  Concord 


267 


men  who  flourished  in  Emerson's  Concord,  the  most  emi 
nent  was  Hawthorne,  whose  work  belongs  not  to  philoso 
phy,  but  to  pure  letters,  and  whom  we  shall  consider  later. 
He  would  hardly  have  expected  a  place  among  the  prophets 
of  the  eternities.    At  least  two  other  Concord  men,  though, 
would  have  been  disposed  to  call  themselves  philosophers, 
and,  with  artless  lack  of  humor,  to  expect  immortality  in 
company  with  Emerson  and  Plato 
and  the  rest.     These  were  AMOS 
BRONSON    ALCOTT    (1799-1888) 
and    HENRY    DAVID  THOREAU 
(1817-1862). 

Alcott  was  four  years  older  than 
Emerson.  The  son  of  a  Connecti 
cut  farmer,  he  began  life  as  a 
peddler,  in  which  character  he 
sometimes  strayed  a  good  way 
southward.  A  thoroughly  honest 
man  of  unusually  active  mind,  his 
chief  emotional  trait  appears  to 
have  been  a  self-esteem  which  he  never  found  reason  to  Alcott. 
abate.  In  the  midst  of  peddling,  he  felt  himself  divinely 
commissioned  to  reform  mankind.  He  soon  decided  that 
his  reform  ought  to  begin  with  education.  As  early  as  1823, 
having  succeeded  in  educating  himself  in  a  manner  which 
he  found  satisfactory,  he  opened  a  school  at  his  native  town, 
Wolcott,  Connecticut.  Five  years  later  he  removed  to  Bos 
ton,  where  he  announced  that  if  people  would  send  him 
their  children,  he  would  educate  them  as  children  had  never 
been  educated  before.  That  he  kept  this  promise  no  one 
will  doubt  after  reading  the  two  volumes  of  Conversations 
with  Children  on  the  Gospels  (1836-1837),  which  show  Al- 


268      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

cott's  strange  method  of  teaching  the  poor  little  Boston 
children  by  asking  them  questions  about  the  soul  and  the 
eternities,  and  by  punishing  the  good  children  when  the 
bad  children  misbehaved.* 

Before  many  years  his  school  came  to  an  end.  Mr. 
Alcott  then  became  a  professional  philosopher,  lecturing, 
writing,  and  failing  to  support  his  family  in  decent  com 
fort.  When  the  Dial  was  started,  he  contributed  to  it  his 
"Orphic  Sayings."  The  fountain  of  these  was  inex 
haustible  ;  and  even  Margaret  Fuller  had  practical  sense 
enough  to  inform  him  with  regret  that  she  could  not 
afford  to  fill  the  Dial  with  matter,  however  valuable,  from 
a  single  contributor.  His  reply  was  characteristic;  he 
loftily  regretted  that  the  Dial  was  no  longer  an  organ  of 
free  speech.  In  1842  he  visited  England,  where  certain 
people  of  a  radical  turn  received  him  with  a  seriousness 
which  he  found  gratifying.  Returning  to  America,  he 
endeavored  to  establish  at  Harvard,  Massachusetts,  a  com- 
Fruitiands.  munity  called  Fruitlands,  something  like  the  contemporary 
Brook  Farm.  Before  long  Fruitlands  naturally  collapsed. 
For  most  of  his  ensuing  life,  he  lived  in  Concord. 

There  is  an  aspect,  no  doubt,  in  which  such  a  life  seems 
the  acme  of  perverse  selfishness;  but  this  is  far  from  the 
whole  story.  The  man's  weakness,  as  well  as  his  strength, 
lay  in  a  self-esteem  so  inordinate  that  it  crowded  out  of  his 
possibilities  any  approach  either  to  good  sense  or  to  the 
saving  grace  of  humor.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  honest, 
he  was  sincere,  he  was  devoted  to  idealism,  and  he  attached 
to  his  perceptions,  opinions,  and  utterances  an  importance 
which  those  who  found  him  sympathetic  were  occasionally 

*  See  also  Elizabeth  Palmer  Peabody's  Record  of  a  School:  Exempli 
fying  the  General  Principles  of  Spiritual  Culture  (1835). 


269 


inclined  to  share.  Of  his  published  writings  none  was 
remembered,  unless  by  his  immediate  friends,  a  year  after 
he  died.  In  life  the  man  was  a  friend  of  Emerson's, 
holding  in  the  town  of  Concord  a  position  which  he  prob 
ably  believed  as  eminent  as  Emerson's  own.  Now  he 
seems  the  extreme  type  of  what  Yankee  idealism  could 
come  to  when  unchecked  by  humor  or  common-sense. 

If  Alcott  is  rapidly  being  forgotten,  the  case  is  different 
with  Thoreau.  For  whatever  the 
quality  of  Thoreau's  philosophy, 
the  man  was  in  his  own  way  a 
literary  artist  of  unusual  merit. 
He  was  born  of  a  Connecticut 
family  not  long  emigrated  from 
France.  On  his  mother's  side  he 
had  Yankee  blood.  What  little 
record  remains  of  his  kin  would 
seem  to  show  that,  like  many  New 
England  folks  of  the  farming  class, 
they  had  a  kind  of  doggedly  self- 
assertive  temper  which  inclined 
them  to  habits  of  personal  isola 
tion.  Thoreau  graduated  at  Harvard  College  in  1837. 
While  a  student  he  gained  some  little  distinction  as  a 
writer  of  English;  his  compositions,  though  commonplace 
in  substance,  are  sensitive  in  form.  After  graduation,  he 
lived  mostly  at  Concord.  Though  not  of  pure  Yankee 
descent,  he  had  true  Yankee  versatility;  he  was  a  tolera 
ble  farmer,  a  good  surveyor,  and  a  skilful  maker  of  lead- 
pencils.  In  one  way  or  another  he  was  thus  able  by  the 
work  of  comparatively  few  weeks  in  the  year  to  provide 
the  simple  necessities  of  his  vegetarian  life.  So  he  early 


Thoreau. 


270      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

determined  to  work  no  more  than  was  needful  for  self- 
support,  and  to  spend  the  rest  of  his  time  in  high 
thinking. 

In  the  general  course  which  his  thinking  and  conduct 
took,  one  feels  a  trace  of  his  French  origin.  Human 
beings,  the  French  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century 
had  strenuously  held,  are  born  good;  evil  could  spring 
only  from  the  distorting  influences  of  society.  Accepted 
by  the  earlier  Transcendentalists,  this  line  of  thought 
had  led  to  such  experimental  communities  as  Brook 
Farm  and  the  still  more  fleeting  Fruitlands.  Thoreau 
was  Frenchman  enough  to  reason  out  individualism  to 
its  logical  extreme.  The  reform  of  society  must  be  ac 
complished,  if  at  all,  by  the  reform  of  the  individuals  who 
compose  it.  Communities,  after  all,  are  only  miniature 
societies,  wherein  must  lurk  all  the  germs  of  social  evil. 
Let  individuals  look  to  themselves,  then;  under  no  other 
circumstances  can  human  nature  freely  develop  its  in 
herent  excellence.  So  for  twenty-five  years  Thoreau, 
living  at  Concord,  steadily  tried  to  keep  himself  free  from 
complications  with  other  people.  Incidentally,  he  had 
the  good  sense  not  to  marry;  and  as  nobody  was  depend 
ent  on  him  for  support,  his  method  of  life  could  do  no 
harm. 

Thoreau  meant  to  be  a  philosopher,  illustrating  his 
philosophy  from  what  he  saw  about  Walden  Pond,  or  on 
Cape  Cod,  or  in  the  Maine  woods,  just  as  Emerson  drew 
his  illustrations  from  Plato,  the  Bible,  Saadi,  or  Plutarch. 
Now  with  Emerson,  although  the  illustrations  were  often 
not  original  and  usually  were  chosen  haphazard,  the  prin 
ciple,  as  we  have  seen,  was  apt  to  be  of  permanent  value 
for  its  lesson  of  faith  and  courage.  Later  generations, 


Lesser  Men  of  Concord  271 

therefore,  have  remembered  Emerson's  lessons  of  self- 
reliance  and  the  like,  and  have  forgotten  any  criticisms 
which,  by  way  of  illustration,  he  may  have  passed  upon 
Napoleon,  or  Buddah,  or  Shakspere.  With  Thoreau  the 
case  is  exactly  the  opposite.  People  have  come  to  think 
that  Thoreau's  philosophy  was  often  crabbed,  far-fetched, 
and  unoriginal.  But  they  have  also  found  that  he  illus 
trated  his  philosophy  with  eyes  which  for  seeing  ponds, 
and  leaves,  and  birds,  were  the  very  best  of  his  time.  So 
they  have  very  sensibly  forgotten  Thoreau  as  a  philos 
opher,  and  have  kept  him  in  mind  as  a  loving  observer  of 
Nature.  To  take  a  case  in  point :  Thoreau's  best  known 
experiment  was  his  residence  for  about  two  years  in  the 
woods  near  Concord,  where  he  built  himself  a  little  cabin, 
supported  himself  by  cultivating  land  enough  to  provide 
for  his  immediate  wants,  and  devoted  his  leisure  to  philo 
sophic  thought.  The  fruit  of  this  experiment  was  his 
best  known  book,  Walden  (1854).  To  Thoreau  himself 
Walden  was  chiefly  important  because  it  tried  to  prove  Walden. 
something.  "I  went  to  the  woods,"  he  says,  "because 
I  wished  to  live  deliberately,  to  front  only  the  essential 
facts  of  life,  and  see  if  I  could  not  learn  what  it  had  to 
teach,  and  not,  when  I  came  to  die,  discover  that  I  had 
not  lived."  Nowadays,  however,  we  care  much  less 
for  what  Walden  tries  to  prove  than  for  what  its  author 
heard  and  saw  near  Walden  Pond. 

Nature,  as  every  one  knows,  had  been  a  favorite  theme 
of  that  romantic  revival  in  England  whose  leader  was 
Wordsworth.  In  one  aspect,  Thoreau's  writing  might  ac 
cordingly  seem  little  more  than  an  American  evidence  of  a 
temper  which  had  declared  itself  in  the  old  world  a  gen 
eration  before.  Nothing,  however,  can  alter  the  fact  that 


272      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

the  Nature  he  delighted  in  was  characteristically  American. 
First  of  all  men,  Thoreau  brought  that  revolutionary 
temper  which  recoils  from  the  artificialities  of  civilization 
face  to  face  with  the  rugged  fields,  the  pine  woods  and  the 
apple  orchards,  the  lonely  ponds  and  the  crystalline  skies 
of  eastern  New  England.  His  travels  occasionally  ranged 
so  far  as  the  Merrimac  River,  Cape  Cod,  or  even  beyond 
Maine  into  Canada;  but  pleasant  as  the  books  are  in 
which  he  recorded  these  wanderings,*  we  could  spare 
them  far  better  than  Walden,  or  than  the  journalsf  in 
which  for  years  he  set  down  his  daily  observations  in  the 
single  town  of  Concord.  Thoreau's  individuality  is  often 
so  assertive  as  to  repel  a  sympathy  which  it  happens  not 
instantly  to  attract;  but  that  sympathy  must  be  unwhole- 
somely  sluggish  which  would  willingly  resist  the  appeal  of 
his  communion  with  Nature.  If  your  lot  be  ever  cast 
in  some  remote  region  of  our  simple  country,  he  can  do 
you,  when  you  will,  a  rare  service,  stimulating  your  eye  to 
see,  and  your  ear  to  hear,  in  all  the  little  commonplaces 
about  you,  those  endlessly  changing  details  which  make 
life  everywhere  so  wondrous. 

Nor  is  Thoreau's  vitality  in  literature  a  matter  only  of 
his  observation.  Open  his  works  almost  anywhere — there 
are  eleven  volumes  of  them  now — and  even  in  the  philo 
sophic  passages  you  will  find  loving  precision  of  touch.  He 
was  no  immortal  maker  of  phrases.  Amid  bewildering  ob 
scurities,  Emerson  now  and  again  flashed  out  utterances 
which  may  last  as  long  as  our  language.  Thoreau  had 

*A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers,  1849;  The  Maine 
Woods,  1864;  Cape  Cod,  1865,  A  Yankee  in  Canada,  with  Anti-Slavery 
and  Reform  Papers,  1866. 

t  Early  Spring  in  Massachusetts,  etc.,  ed.  H.  G.  O.  Blake,  1881; 
Summer,  1884;  Winter,  1888;  Autumn,  1892 


Lesser  Men  of  Concord  273 

no  such  power;  but  he  did  possess  in  higher  degree  than 
Emerson  himself  the  power  of  making  sentences  and  para 
graphs  artistically  beautiful.  Read  him  aloud,  and  you 
will  find  in  his  work  a  trait  like  that  which  we  remarked 
in  the  cadences  of  Brockden  Brown  and  of  Poe;  the 
emphasis  of  your  voice  is  bound  to  fall  where  meaning 
demands.  An  effect  like  this  is  attainable  only  through 
delicate  sensitiveness  to  rhythm.  So  when  you  come  to 
Thoreau's  pictures  of  Nature,  you  have  an  almost  inex 
haustible  series  of  verbal  sketches  in  which  every  touch 
has  the  grace  of  precision.  On  a  large  scale,  to  be  sure, 
his  composition  falls  to  pieces;  he  never  troubled  himself 
about  a  systematically  made  book,  or  even  a  systematic 
chapter.  In  mere  choice  of  words,  too,  he  is  generally 
so  simple  as  to  seem  almost  commonplace.  But  his  sen 
tences  and  paragraphs  are  often  models  of  art  so  fine  as  to 
seem  artless. 

With  Thoreau's  philosophy,  as  we  have  seen,  the  case 
is  different.  Among  Emerson's  chief  traits  was  the  fact 
that  when  he  scrutinized  the  eternities  in  search  of  ideal 
truth,  his  whole  energy  was  devoted  to  the  act  of  scrutiny. 
Perhaps,  like  Emerson,  Thoreau  had  the  true  gift  of  vision ;  Summary, 
but  surely  he  could  never  report  his  visions  in  terms  which 
suffer  us  to  forget  himself.  The  glass  which  he  offers  to 
our  eyes  is  always  tinctured  with  his  own  disturbing  in 
dividuality.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  Thoreau  was  a 
more  conscientious  artist  than  Emerson,  this  constant 
obtrusion  of  his  personality  places  him  in  a  lower  rank, 
just  as  surely  as  his  loving  sense  of  nature  places  him  far 
above  the  half-foolish  egotism  of  Bronson  Alcott.  More 
and  more  the  emergence  of  Emerson  from  his  surround 
ings  grows  distinct.  Like  truly  great  men,  whether  he 


274      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

was  truly  great  or  not,  he  possessed  the  gift  of  such  com 
mon-sense  as  saves  men  from  the  perversities  of  eccen 
tricity. 

We  have  now  followed  the  Renaissance  of  New  Eng 
land  from  its  beginning  in  the  fresh  vitality  of  public  utter 
ances  and  scholarship,  through  the  awakening  optimism 
of  the  Unitarians,  to  the  disintegrant  vagaries  of  the  Tran- 
scendentalists.  We  have  seen  how,  as  this  impulse  pro 
ceeded,  it  tended  to  assume  forms  which  might  reason 
ably  alarm  people  of  sagely  conservative  habit.  Reform 
in  some  respects  is  essentially  destructive;  and  the  en 
thusiasm  of  Yankee  reformers  early  showed  symptoms 
of  concentration  in  a  shape  which  ultimately  became 
destructive  to  a  whole  system  of  society.  This,  which 
enlisted  at  least  the  sympathies  of  almost  every  Tran- 
scendentalist — which  was  warmly  advocated  by  Channing 
himself,  which  stirred  Emerson  to  fervid  utterances  con 
cerning  actual  facts,  and  which  inspired  some  of  the 
latest  and  most  ardent  writings  of  Thoreau — was  the 
philanthropic  movement  for  the  abolition  of  negro 
slavery  in  our  Southern  States. 


VIII 

THE    ANTISLAVERY    MOVEMENT 

REFERENCES 

GENERAL  AUTHORITIES:  J.  F.  Clarke,  "The  Antislavery  Movement 
in  Boston, "  Winsor's  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  III,  Chapter  vi;  T.  W. 
Higginson,  Contemporaries,  Boston:  Hough  ton,  1899.  For  further  refer 
ences,  see  Channing  and  Hart,  Guide,  §§  187  ff. 

GARRISON 

WORKS:  Selections  from  the  Writings  and  Speeches  of  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  Boston:  R.  F.  Wallcut,  1852. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  Life  by  W.  P.  Garrison  and  F.  J.  Garrison, 
4  vols.,  New  York:  Century  Co.,  1885-1889. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Channing  and  Hart,  Guide,  §  187. 

SELECTIONS:  Hart,  Contemporaries,  IV,  No.  126;  Stedman,  102; 
*Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VI,  222-230. 

PARKER 

WORKS:  Works,  14  vols.,  London:  Triibner,  1863-1865;  Speeches, 
Addresses  and  Occasional  Sermons,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co., 
1852. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  John  Weiss,  Life  and  Correspondence  of 
Theodore  Parker,  2  vols.,  New  York:  Appleton,  1864;  J.  W.  Chadwick, 
Theodore  Parker,  Boston:  Houghton,  1900. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  As  for  Garrison. 

SELECTIONS:  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VI,  514-520. 

PHILLIPS 

WORKS:  Speeches,  Lectures,  and  Letters,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Lee  &  Shep- 
ard,  1863-1892. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  G.  L.  Austin,  Life  and  Times  of  Wendell 
Phillips,  Boston:  Lee  &  Shepard,  1888. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  As  for  Garrison. 

SELECTIONS:  Hart,  Contemporaries,  IV,  No.  102;  Stedman  and  Hutch 
inson,  VII,  60-68. 

275 


276      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

StTMNER 

WORKS:  Works,  15  vols.,  Boston:  Lee  &  Shepard,  1870-1883. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  E.  L.  Pierce,  Memoir  and  Letters  of 
Charles  Sumner,^  vols.,  Boston:  Roberts,  1877-1893;  Moorfield  Storey, 
Charles  Sumner,  Boston:  Houghton,  1899  (AS);  Rhodes,  History  of  the 
United  States,  II,  Chapter  vii. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Channing  and  Hart,  Guide,  §§  202,  211. 

SELECTIONS:  Hart,  Contemporaries,  IV,  Nos.  146,  174;  Stedman  and 
Hutchinson,  VII,  68-78. 

MRS.    STOWE 

WORKS:  Works,  Riverside  Edition,  16  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1896. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  Mrs.  J.  T.  Fields,  The  Lije  o)  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe,  Boston:  Houghton,  1897. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  312-322;  Hart,  Contemporaries,  IV,  No.  24; 
Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VII,  132-155. 

LINCOLN 

WORKS:  Complete  Works,  ed.  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  2  vols., 
New  York:  Century  Co.,  1894;  Passages  from  [Lincoln's]  Speeches  and 
Letters,  New  York:  Century  Co.,  1901. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  Life,  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  10 
vols.,  New  York:  Century  Co.,  1890;  J.  T.  Morse,  Jr.,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
2  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1893  (AS). 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Channing  and  Hart,  Guide,  especially  §  208. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  260—267;  Hart,  Contemporaries,  IV,  Nos.  44, 
66,  101,  127,  145;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VI,  470-485. 

ENTHUSIASM  for  reform  was  obviously  involved  in  the 
conception  of  human  nature  which  underlay  the  world 
wide  revolutionary  movement  whose  New  England  mani 
festation  took  the  forms  of  Unitarianism  and  Transcen 
dentalism.     If  human  nature  is  essentially  good,  if  evil  is 
Enthu-        merely   the   consequence   of  what   modern   evolutionists 
Reforaj°r     mignt  call  artificial  environment,  it  follows  that  relaxation 
inherent  in    of  environment,  releasing  men   from    temporary    bond- 

Unitarian-  .  .  .          . 

ism  and        age,  must  change  things  for  the  better.     The  heyday  of 
Transcen-     Transcendentalism  cansequently  had  a  humorous  super- 

dentalism.  ^  J 

ficial  aspect,  admirably  described  in  Lowell's   essay  on 


The  Antislavery  Movement  277 

Thoreau  (1865).  "A  sudden  mental  and  moral  mutiny," 
he  calls  it,  in  which  "every  possible  form  of  intel 
lectual  and  physical  dyspepsia  brought  forth  its  gospel." 
So  long  as  reform  remains  in  this  stage,  it  can  hardly  im 
press  people  of  common-sense  as  worse  than  ridiculous. 
When  reform  becomes  militant,  however,  trouble  heaves 
in  sight;  and  the  militant  shape  which  New  England  re 
form  took  in  the  '403  clearly  involved  not  only  a  social 
revolution,  but  an  unprecedented  attack  on  that  general 
right  of  property  which  the  Common  Law  had  always 
defended. 

Negro  slavery,  at  one  time  common  to  all  the  English-  Early 
speaking  colonies,  had  died  out  in  the  Northern  States,  ^slavery! 
During  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  mean 
while,  the  condition  of  industry  in  the  South  had  tended 
to  stimulate  the  institution  in  that  region  until  it  assumed 
unforeseen  social  and  economic  importance.  Throughout 
colonial  history  there  had  been  considerable  theoretical 
objection  to  slavery.*  Samuel  Sewall  opposed  it;  so  from 
the  beginning  did  the  Quakers ;  and  even  in  the  South  itself 
there  were  plenty  of  people  who  saw  its  evils  and  hoped 
for  its  disappearance.  But  no  thoroughly  organized  move 
ment  against  it  took  place  until  the  air  of  New  England 
freshened  with  the  spirit  of  Renaissance. 

Channing,  who  passed  the  years  from  1798  to  1800  in 
Richmond,  wrote  from  there: 

"Master  and  slave!  Nature  never  made  such  a  distinction,  or 
established  such  a  relation.  Man,  when  forced  to  substitute  the  will 
of  another  for  his  own,  ceases  to  be  a  moral  agent;  his  title  to  the  name 
of  man  is  extinguished,  he  becomes  a  mere  machine  in  the  hands  of 

*  Consult  the  references  under  "Slavery"  in  Stedman  and  Hutchin- 
son's  Library  of  American  Literature,  Vol.  XI. 


278      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

his  oppressor.     The  influence  of  slavery  on  the  whites  is  almost  as 
fatal  as  on  the  blacks  themselves." 

To  Charming  the  conclusion  here  stated  was  unavoid 
able.  If  human  beings  are  essentially  good,  they  have  a 
natural  right  to  free  development.  No  form  of  environ 
ment  could  more  impede  such  development  than  lifelong 
slavery.  So  slavery  confronted  honest  believers  in  human 
excellence  with  a  dilemma.  Either 
this  thing  was  a  monstrous  denial 
of  fundamental  truth,  or  else  the 
negroes  were  not  human.  Some 
thing  like  the  latter  view  was  cer 
tainly  held  by  many  good  people. 
In  the  South,  indeed,  it  became 
almost  axiomatic.  To  most  phil 
anthropic  Northern  people  in 
1830,  on  the  other  hand,  the  dis 
tinction  between  Caucasians  and 
Africans  seemed  literally  a  ques 
tion  of  complexion.  Men  they 
believed  to  be  incarnate  souls ;  and 
the  color  which  a  soul  happened  to  assume  they  held  a 
mere  accident.* 

Accordingly,  a  full  nine  years  before  the  foundation  of 
the  Dial,  there  was  unflinchingly  established  in  Boston  a 
newspaper,  which  until  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  remained 
the  official  organ  of  the  New  England  antislavery  men. 
This  was  the  Liberator,  founded  in  1831  by  WILLIAM 
LLOYD  GARRISON  (1805-1879).  Born  of  the  poorer 
classes  at  Newburyport,  by  trade  a  printer,  by  tempera- 

*  This  is  compactly  shown  in  the  phrasing  of  the  title  of  Lydia  Maria 
Child's  Appeal  in  Favor  of  that  Class  of  Americans  called  Africans  (1833). 


The  Antislavery  Movement  279 

ment  an  uncompromising  reformer,  he  was  stirred  from 
youth  by  a  deep  conviction  that  slavery  must  be  up 
rooted.  When  he  founded  the  Liberator,  he  had  already 
made  himself  conspicuous;  but  the  educated  classes 
thought  him  insignificant.  In  1833  he  was  a  principal 
founder  of  the  Antislavery  Society  in  Philadelphia.  From 
that  time,  the  movement  strengthened.  Garrison  died 
in  1879.  For  the  last  fifteen  years  of  his  life  he  was  held, 
as  he  is  held  by  tradition,  a  great  national  hero,  a  man 
who  stood  for  positive  right,  who  won  his  cause,  who 
deserves  unquestioning  admiration,  and  whose  opponents 
merit  equally  unquestioning  contempt. 

So  complete  a  victory  has  rarely  been  the  lot  of  any 
earthly  reformer,  and  there  are  aspects  in  which  Garrison 
deserves  all  the  admiration  accorded  to  his  memory.  Fa 
natical,  of  course,  he  was  absolutely  sincere  in  his  fanati 
cism,  absolutely  devoted  and  absolutely  brave.  What  is 
more,  he  is  to  be  distinguished  from  most  Americans  who 
in  his  earlier  days  had  attained  eminence  and  influence  by 
the  fact  that  he  never  had  such  educational  training  as 
should  enable  him  to  see  more  than  one  side  of  a  question. 
The  greatest  strength  of  an  honest,  uneducated  reformer 
lies  in  his  unquestioning  singleness  of  view.  He  really 
believes  those  who  oppose  him  to  be  as  wicked  as  he  bf 
lieves  himself  to  be  good.  What  moral  strength  is  in- 
herent  in  blind  conviction  is  surely  and  honorably  his. 

But  because  Garrison  was  honest,  brave,  and  strenuous,  TK  con- 
and  because  long  before  his  life  closed,  the  movement  to  QpT^on* 
which  he  unreservedly  gave  his  energy  proved  triumphant, 
it  does  not  follow  that  the  men  who  opposed  him  were 
wicked.     To  understand  the  temper  of  the  conservative 
people  of  New  England  we  must  stop  for  a  moment,  and 


280      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

see  how  slavery  presented  itself  to  them  during  the  years 
of  the  antislavery  struggle. 

In  the  first  place,  the  institution  of  slavery  was  honestly 
regarded  by  many  people  as  one  phase  of  the  more  com 
prehensive  institution  which  really  lies  at  the  basis  of 
modern  civilization — namely,  property.  The  conviction 
that  slavery,  whatever  its  evils,  was  really  a  form  of 
property,  and  that  an  attack  on  slavery  therefore  in 
volved  a  general  attack  on  civilization,  was  one  of  the 
strongest  convictions  of  conservative  New  England. 

Again,  in  many  minds  which  abhorred  the  evils  of 
slavery,  this  conviction  was  strengthened  by  an  equally 
honest  one  that  when  you  have  made  a  bargain  you  should 
stick  to  it.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was 
presenting  itself  more  and  more  in  the  light  of  an  agree 
ment  between  two  incompatible  sets  of  economic  insti 
tutions,  assuring  to  each  the  right  freely  to  exist  within 
its  own  limits.  Among  the  conservative  classes  of  New 
England  the  antislavery  movement  accordingly  seemed  as 
threatening  to  the  Union  as  to  property  itself.  Whatever 
threatened  Union  or  property,  they  conceived,  clearly 
threatened  civilization. 

A  third  consideration,  also,  had  great  weight  among 
thoughtful  people:  antislavery  agitation,  they  believed, 
would  greatly  increase  the  danger  of  savage  insurrection, 
the  mere  fear  of  which  kept  Southern  people,  especially 
Southern  women,  in  constant  terror.* 

When  at  last  the  antislavery  movement  began  to  gather 
disturbing  force,  this  conservative  opposition  to  it  was 
therefore  as  violent,  as  sincere,  as  deep,  and  in  many  as 
pects  as  admirable,  as  was  the  movement  itself.  But  the 

*  See  Rhodes,  History  of  the  United  States,  I,  376-377. 


The  Antislavery  Movement  281 

fact  that  the  conservative  temper  of  New  England  was 
not,  as  some  antislavery  men  asserted,  wicked,  in  no  way 
involves  what  conservative  New  England  passionately 
proclaimed — namely,  wickedness  on  the  part  of  the  anti- 
slavery  men  themselves.  The  truth  is  that  an  irrepressi 
ble  social  conflict  was  at  hand,  and  that  both  sides  were 
as  honorable  as  were  both  sides  during  the  American 
Revolution,  or  during  the  civil  wars  of  England.  The 
earlier  phases  of  the  antislavery  movement  produced  no 
pure  literature ;  but  they  did  excite  the  most  characteristic 
utterances  of  at  least  three  orators  who  are  still  remem 
bered. 

The  one  of  these  who  most  clearly  marks  the  relation  Parker, 
of  the  antislavery  movement  to  Unitarianism  and  Tran 
scendentalism  was  the  Reverend  THEODORE  PARKER 
(1810-1860).  Born  of  country  folk  at  Lexington,  Massa 
chusetts,  he  studied  at  Harvard  in  1830-1,  and  in  1837  he 
became  a  Unitarian  minister.  In  the  history  of  Unita 
rianism  he  has  a  prominent  place ;  in  the  history  of  Tran 
scendentalism,  too,  for  his  writings  are  among  the  most 
vigorous  and  specific  in  the  Dial,  to  which  he  was  a  con 
stant  contributor;  but  his  most  solid  strength  lay  in  his 
scholarship.  There  have  been  few  men  in  New  England 
whose  learning  has  equalled  his  in  range  and  in  vitality. 
The  manner  in  which  his  ardent  nature  impelled  him  to 
express  himself,  however,  was  so  far  from  what  is  gen 
erally  characteristic  of  scholars  that  in  popular  memory 
his  scholarship  has  almost  been  forgotten.  As  a  Uni 
tarian  minister,  Parker  is  remembered  mostly  for  having 
carried  individual  preaching  to  its  most  unflinching  con 
clusions.  As  a  Transcendentalist,  Parker's  enthusiastic 
and  active  temperament  made  him  far  more  reformer  than 


282      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

philosopher.  He  was  content  to  let  others  pry  into  the 
secrets  of  the  eternities.  What  chiefly  interested  him  were 
the  lines  of  conduct  which  men  ought  to  follow  in  view  of 
the  new  floods  of  light;  and  among  these  lines  of  con 
duct  none  seemed  to  him  so  important  as  that  which  should 
lead  straightest  to  the  abolition  of  slavery.  He  never 
lived  to  see  his  passionate  purpose  accomplished.  Intense 
activity  broke  down  his  health;  he  died  and  was  buried 
at  Florence,  whither  he  had  gone  for  recuperation. 

Among  his  virtues  and  graces  was  not  that  of  sympathy 
with  opponents;  and  when  it  came  to  public  utterances 
on  the  subject  of  abolition  he  indulged  himself  in  a  free 
dom  of  personal  attack  which,  after  the  lapse  of  half  a 
century,  seems  extreme.  For  this  might  be  pleaded 
the  excuse  that  Theodore  Parker,  like  Garrison,  sprang 
from  that  uneducated  class  which  is  apt  to  see  only 
one  side  of  any  stirring  question.  No  such  excuse  may 
be  pleaded  for  the  personal  acrimony  of  those  two  other 
antislavery  orators  who  are  best  remembered — WENDELL 
PHILLIPS  (1811-1884)  and  CHARLES  SUMNER  (1811-1874). 
Phillips.  Phillips  bore  a  distinguished  name.  Kinsmen  of  his 
had  founded  the  academies  of  Exeter  and  Andover,  and 
his  father  had  been  the  first  Mayor  of  the  city  of  Boston 
at  a  time  when  political  power  there  still  resided  in 
the  hands  of  a  few  leading  families.  He  graduated  at 
Harvard  College  in  1831,  and  in  1834  he  was  admitted  to 
the  bar.  A  man  of  extremely  active  and  combative  tem 
perament,  he  sincerely  wished  to  practise  his  profession; 
but  for  the  next  two  or  three  years  he  found  few  clients. 
Just  at  this  time  a  meeting  was  held  in  Faneuil  Hall, 
where  among  other  speakers  the  Attorney- General  of 
Massachusetts  defended  the  action  of  a  western  mob  in 


The  Antislavery  Movement  283 

taking  the  life  of  Lovejoy,  a  very  outspoken  Abolitionist. 
Phillips  was  in  the  audience;  he  interrupted  the  speaker, 
made  his  way  to  the  platform,  and  then  and  there  delivered 
an  antislavery  outburst  which  carried  the  audience  by 
storm.  So,  having  publicly  declared  war  against  conserv 
atism  by  passionately  inciting  a  public  meeting  to  dis 
regard  the  authority  of  that  class  to  which  he  himself 
hereditarily  belonged,  he  embarked  on  a  lifelong  career  of 
agitation. 

Throughout,  his  oratory  was  highly  finished.  A  man  of 
distinguished  personal  appearance,  with  all  the  grace  and 
formal  restraint  of  hereditary  breeding,  he  had  mastered, 
to  a  rare  degree,  the  subtle  art  of  first  winning  the  sym 
pathy  of  audiences,  and  then  leading  them,  for  the  moment 
unresisting,  to  points  where,  on  waking  from  his  spell,  they 
were  astonished  to  find  themselves.  Many  people,  par 
ticularly  of  the  less  educated  sort,  ended  by  yielding  them 
selves  to  his  power.  Others,  of  a  more  thoughtful  habit, 
often  felt  that  in  fact  this  power  was  only  the  consummate 
adroitness  of  a  man  so  impatient  of  rivalry  as  recklessly  to 
indulge  his  inordinate  passion  for  momentary  dominance. 
His  speeches  were  true  speeches.  In  print,  lacking  the 
magic  of  his  delivery,  they  are  like  the  words  of  songs  which 
for  lyric  excellence  need  the  melodies  to  which  they  have 
once  been  wedded.  As  the  years  pass,  admiration  for  his 
great  effectiveness  of  speech  is  often  qualified  by  suspicion 
that,  with  the  light  which  was  his,  he  should  have  refrained 
from  such  reckless  denunciation  of  established  order. 

Like  Phillips,  the  other  Bostonian  orator  whose  name  is  Sumner. 
associated  with  the  antislavery  movement  sacrificed  his 
social  comfort  to  his  principles.  Charles  Sumner  was  born 
of  a  good  family  at  Boston;  he  graduated  at  Harvard;  he 


Mrs. 
Stowe. 


The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

became  a  lawyer;  and  before  the  age  of  thirty  he  had  spent 
three  years  in  Europe,  where  he  made  permanent  friend 
ships  with  many  notable  people.  A  man  of  cultivated 
taste,  he  appears  at  his  best  in  the  records  of  his  lifelong 
intimacy  with  the  poet  Longfellow.  Like  Phillips's,  his 
career  began  as  one  which  might  have  been  expected 
to  carry  on  the  old  traditions  of  the  cultivated  classes  of 
New  England ;  but  he  early  found 
himself  stirred  by  his  fervent  belief 
in  the  moral  wrong  of  slavery. 
Sumner's  devotion  to  principle  is 
unquestioned.  The  violence  with 
which  he  permitted  himself  to 
abuse  those  who  did  not  share  his 
opinions,  on  the  other  hand,  dis 
figures  many  of  his  speeches.  Of 
these  speeches,  collected  in  fifteen 
good-sized  volumes,  perhaps  the 
most  famous  is  "The  Crime 
against  Kansas,"  delivered  in  the 

United  States  Senate  Chamber  on  the  igth  and  2oth  of 
May,  1856. 

These  antislavery  men  did  some  of  their  chief  work 
when  the  cause  they  advocated  seemed  far  from  public 
favor.  We  come  now  to  a  book  produced  by  the  anti- 
slavery  movement,  which  suddenly  proved  that  movement 
popular.  This  was  Mrs.  HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE'S  (1812 
-1896)  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  published  in  1852,  the  year 
after  Sumner  had  entered  the  Senate  from  Massachusetts, 
and  two  years  after  Webster's  Seventh  of  March  Speech. 

Harriet  Beecher,  in  literature  the  most  distinguished  of 
her  family,  was  born  at  Litchfield,  Connecticut,  where  her 


The  Antislavery  Movement  285 

father,  LYMAN  BEECHER  (1775-1863),  was  settled  as  a  Con 
gregational  minister.  In  1832  her  father  removed  from 
Boston  to  Cincinnati,  where  for  twenty  years  he  was  the 
president  of  a  theological  seminary.  Here,  in  1836,  Har 
riet  Beecher  married  the  Reverend  Calvin  Stowe,  who, 
like  herself,  had  ardent  antislavery  sympathies.  In 
ordinary  domestic  duties  Mrs.  Stowe  had  more  to  do  than 
most  women;  but  her  activity  was  such  that  throughout 
her  busiest  days  her  mind  was  constantly  though  not 
systematically  occupied  with  the  reform  which  she  did  so 
much  to  further.  Living  for  years  just  on  the  borderland 
of  the  slave  States  and  the  free,  she  acquired  a  personal 
familiarity  with  slavery  shared  by  few  Northern  people; 
and  at  odd  times  she  was  constantly  practising  her  pen. 
In  1850,  the  year  of  Webster's  Seventh  of  March  Speech, 
her  husband  was  appointed  a  professor  at  Bowdoin 
College,  Brunswick,  Maine.  Here,  in  1851  and  1852, 
Mrs.  Stowe  wrote  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  the  object  of  which 
was  to  set  forth  in  concrete  form  the  actual  horrors  of 
slavery.  At  first  little  noticed,  this  book  rapidly  attracted 
popular  attention.  During  the  next  five  years  above  half 
a  million  copies  were  sold  in  the  United  States  alone;  and 
it  is  hardly  excessive  to  say  that  wherever  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin  went,  public  conscience  was  aroused.* 

Written  carelessly,  and  full  of  crudities,  Uncle  Tom's  uncic 
Cabin,  even  after  fifty  years,  remains  a  remarkable  piece 
of  fiction.  The  truth  is,  that  almost  unawares  Mrs. 
Stowe  had  in  her  the  stuff  of  which  good  novelists  are 
made.  Her  plot,  to  be  sure,  is  conventional  and  rambling; 
but  her  characters,  even  though  little  studied  in  detail, 
have  a  vitality  which  no  study  can  achieve;  we  unhesi- 

*  See  Rhodes,  I,  278-285. 


286      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

tatingly  accept  them  as  real.  Her  descriptive  power, 
meanwhile,  was  such  as  to  make  equally  real  the  back 
grounds  in  which  her  action  and  her  characters  move. 
What  is  more,  these  backgrounds,  most  of  which  she  knew 
from  personal  experience,  are  probably  so  faithful  to  actual 
nature  that  the  local  sentiment  aroused  as  you  read  them 
may  generally  be  accepted  as  true.  And  though  Mrs. 
Stowe's  book  was  written  in  spare  moments,  amid  the 
distractions  of  housekeeping  and  of  a  growing  family,  her 
careless  style  is  often  strong  and  vivid. 

Should  any  one  doubt  Mrs.  Stowe's  power  as  a  writer, 
remembering  only  that  in  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  she  achieved 
a  great  popular  success,  partly  caused  by  the  changing 
public  opinion  of  her  day,  we  need  only  glance  at  some  of 
her  later  work  to  make  sure  that  she  had  in  her  a  power 
which,  if  circumstances  had  permitted  its  development, 
might  have  given  her  a  distinguished  place  in  English 
oidtown  fiction.  Her  best  book  is  probably  Oldtown  Folks 
(1869).  Like  all  her  work,  this  rambling  story  of  life  near 
Boston  about  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  is 
careless  in  detail  and  very  uneven.  As  you  consider  it, 
however,  you  grow  to  feel  that  above  almost  any  other 
book  Oldtown  Folks  sets  forth  the  circumstances  and  the 
temper  of  the  native  Yankee  people.  What  is  more,  the 
careful  passages — the  opening  chapters,  for  example — are 
admirably  written.  In  brief,  Mrs.  Stowe  differed  from 
most  American  novelists  in  possessing  a  spark  of  genius. 
Had  this  genius  pervaded  her  work,  she  might  have  been 
a  figure  of  lasting  literary  importance. 

Even  as  it  was,  she  had  power  enough  to  make  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  the  most  potent  literary  force  of  the  anti- 
slavery  days.  She  differed  from  most  Abolitionists  in 


The  Antislavery  Movement  287 

having  observed  on  the  spot  all  the  tragic  evils  of  slavery. 
Until  the  publication  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  slavery  had 
on  the  whole  presented  itself  to  the  North  as  a  deplorable 
abstraction.  Wherever  the  book  went,  it  awakened  this 
abstraction  into  life,  much  as  powerful  preaching  some 
times  awakens  a  dormant  sentiment  of  religion.  Of 
course,  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  is  partisan,  but  it  is  honestly 
so;  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Mrs.  Stowe  believed  her 
negroes  as  true  to  life  as  later,  and  rightly,  she  believed 
the  Yankees  of  Oldtown  Folks.  Whatever  you  may 
think  of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  you  can  never  truly  feel 
it  to  have  been  instigated  by  a  demagogic  purpose. 
Mrs.  Stowe's  purpose  was  honestly  to  state  appalling 
truth. 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  was  published  in  1852.  To  its  un 
precedented  popularity  may  perhaps  be  traced  the  final 
turn  of  the  public  tide.  Within  ten  years  the  conflict  be 
tween  the  slave  States  and  the  free  reached  the  inevitable 
point  of  civil  war.  The  ist  of  January,  1863,  saw  that 
final  proclamation  of  emancipation  which,  by  confiscating, 
as  virtually  contraband  property,  all  slaves  in  the  States 
which  were  then  in  arms  against  the  Federal  government, 
practically  achieved  the  end  for  which  the  antislavery  men 
had  unfalteringly  striven. 

We  can  hardly  speak  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  Lincoln 
without  touching  for  a  moment  upon  the  greatest  name  in 
American  history  of  the  nineteenth  century.  ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN  (1809-1865)  proved  himself  in  the  Lincoln- 
Douglas  campaign  such  a  master  of  debate,  and  in  his 
inaugural  addresses  and  in  the  famous  Gettysburg  speech 
such  a  master  of  simple  and  powerfully  eloquent  English, 
that,  aside  from  his  great  political  services,  any  account 


288      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

of  American  oratory  or  of  antislavery  would  be  incomplete 
without  some  mention  of  him.  But  Lincoln's  historical 
importance  is  so  great  that  any  discussion  of  him  would 
lead  us  far  afield.  And  our  concern  now  is  with  New 
England. 


IX 

JOHN    GREENLEAF   WHITTIER 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Riverside  Edition,  7  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1888;  Poems, 
Cambridge  Edition,  i  vol.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1894. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  *S.  T.  Pickard,  Life  and  Letters  of  John 
Greenlea}  Whittier,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1894;  W.  J.  Linton,  Life 
of  John  Greenlea}  Whittier,  London:  Scott,  1893  (GW);  T.  W.  Higginson, 
John  Greenlea}  Whittier,  New  York:  Macmillan,  1902  (EML);  G.  R.  Car 
penter,  John  Greenlea}  Whittier,  Boston:  Houghton,  1903  (AML);  Wen 
dell,  Stelligeri,  New  York:  Scribner,  1893,  pp.  149-201;  *Stedman, 
Poets  of  America,  Chapter  iv. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Linton's  Whittier,  pp.  i-viii  (at  end);  Foley,  310-320. 

SELECTIONS:  Duyckinck,  II,  473-476;  Griswold,  Poets,  390-406; 
Hart,  Contemporaries,  IV,  Nos.  21,  125;  Stedman,  128-142;  *Stedman 
and  Hutchinson,  VI,  353-389. 

AMONG  the  antislavery  leaders  of  Massachusetts  was 
one  who,  with  the  passing  of  time,  seems  more  and  more 
distinguished  as  a  man  of  letters.  JOHN  GREENLEAF 
WHITTIER  (1807-1892),  born  at  Haverhill,  Massachusetts, 
came  of  sound  country  stock,  remarkable  only  because  for 
several  generations  the  family  had  been  Quakers.  The 
first  New  England  manifestations  of  Quakerism,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  had  taken  an  extravagantly  fanatical 
form,  which  resulted  in  tragedies  still  familiar  to  tradition. 
As  the  Friends  of  New  England  had  settled  down  into 
peaceful  observance  of  their  own  principles,  however,  let 
ting  alone  the  affairs  of  others,  they  had  become  an  incon 
spicuous,  inoffensive  body,  neglected  by  the  surrounding 
orthodoxy.  Theologically,  they  believed  in  God,  Jesus 

289 


290      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

Christ,  and  the  Bible.     The  interpreter  of  the  divine  word 
they  found  not  in  any  established  church  nor  in  any  offi 
cially  sanctified  order  of  ministers,  but  in  the  still,  small 
voice  given  to  mankind  by  the  Heavenly  Father. 
The  In  this  faith  there  is  clearly  involved  a  conclusion  at 

Faith"  odds  with  Calvinism.  To  Quakers,  inasmuch  as  every 
man  possesses  within  himself  the  power  of  seeing  the  inner 
light  and  of  hearing  the  still,  small  voice  of  God,  all  men 
are  necessarily  equal.  So,  when  the  antislavery  move 
ment  began,  Whittier,  a  lifelong  adherent  of  this  traditional 
faith,  found  himself  in  a  relation  to  militant  philanthropy 
very  different  from  that  of  ancestral  Calvinists.  These, 
lately  emancipated  by  the  new  life  of  Unitarianism  and 
Transcendentalism,  came  to  the  reform  with  all  the  hotness 
of  head  which  marks  converts.  Whittier,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  inherited  the  principles  to  which  the  men  with 
whom  he  allied  himself  had  been  converted;  and  so,  al 
though  a  lifelong  and  earnest  reformer,  he  is  remarkably 
free  from  virulence.  Again,  sprung  from  a  class  which 
made  his  childhood  literally  that  of  a  barefoot  boy,  and 
growing  up  in  days  when  the  New  England  country  was 
still  in  the  possession  of  an  unmixed  race  whose  capacity 
for  self-government  has  never  been  surpassed,  Whittier 
could  unhesitatingly  base  not  only  on  religious  theory, 
but  also  on  personal  inexperience,  his  fervent  faith  in  the 
equality  of  mankind. 

Life.  Whittier's  youth  was  passed  in  the  country.     His  edu 

cation  never  went  beyond  country  schools  and  two  terms  at 
the  Haverhill  Academy;  but  he  had  a  natural  love  for 
literature.  W7hen  he  was  nineteen  years  old,  a  poem  of 
his  was  printed  in  the  Newburyport  Free  Press,  then  edited 
by  Garrison.  At  twenty-one  he  was  already  a  professional 


John  Greenleaf  Whittier 


291 


writer  for  country  newspapers.  At  twenty-three  he  was 
editor  of  the  Haverhill  Gazette.  A  year  later  he  was  made 
editor  of  a  paper  in  Hartford,  Connecticut ;  but  his  health, 
never  robust,  troubled  him,  and  he  returned  to  Massachu 
setts.  In  1831  he  published  his  first  volume,  a  little  book  of 
verses  called  New  England  Leg 
ends,  and  during  the  same  year, 
that  in  which  Garrison  established 
the  Liberator  at  Boston,  h  e 
became  actively  and  ardently  in 
terested  in  the  movement  against 
slavery.  Until  1840  this  kept  him 
constantly  busy;  in  that  year  he 
resigned  his  charge  of  the  Penn 
sylvania  Freeman,  a  journal 
devoted  to  the  cause  of  abolition 
in  Philadelphia.  He  removed  to 
Amesbury,  Massachusetts,  where 
he  lived  thenceforth.  From  1826 
until  the  end,  no  year  went  by 
without  his  publishing  poems, 
shy,  and  his  later  life  uneventful. 

Though  Whittier  was  precocious,  and  his  literary  career 
extended  over  more  than  sixty-five  years,  he  was  not  pro 
lific.  He  never  wrote  much  at  a  time,  and  he  never  wrote 
anything  long.  In  the  seven  volumes  of  his  collected 
works  there  are  very  few  pieces  which  might  not  have  been 
produced  at  a  single  sitting.  Again,  his  work  throughout 
these  sixty-five  years  was  far  from  varied  in  character. 
The  limited  circumstances  of  his  life  combined  with  lack 
of  humor  to  make  his  writings  seem  often  commonplace. 
What  gives  them  merit  are  occasional  passages  where 


\ ^ 


His  temperament  was 


292      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

simplicity  emerges  from   commonplace  into  dignity  and 
sometimes  into  passion.     For  half  a  century,  Bryant  re 
mained  correct  and  delicately  sentimental;  for  longer  still 
Whittier  remained  simple,  sincere,  and  fervent. 
Snow-  His  masterpiece,  if  the  word  be  not  excessive,  is  "  Snow- 

Bound,"  written  when  he  was  about  fifty-seven  years  old. 
At  that  time,  when  most  of  his  immediate  family  were 
dead,  he  tenderly  recalled  his  memories  of  childhood. 
The  vivid  simplicity  of  his  descriptions  every  one  must 
feel;  his  picture  of  a  winter  evening  at  his  old  home,  for 
example,  almost  appeals  to  the  eye — 

"Shut  in  from  all  the  world  without, 
We  sat  the  clean-winged  hearth  about, 
Content  to  let  the  north-wind  roar 
In  baffled  rage  at  pane  and  door, 
While  the  red  logs  before  us  beat 
The  frost  line  back  with  tropic  heat; 
And  ever,  when  a  louder  blast 
Shook  beam  and  rafter  as  it  passed, 
The  merrier  up  its  roaring  draught 
The  great  throat  of  the  chimney  laughed; 
The  house-dog  on  his  paws  outspread 
Lay  to  the  fire  his  drowsy  head, 
The  cat's  dark  silhouette  on  the  wall 
A  couchant  tiger's  seemed  to  fall; 
And,  for  the  winter  fireside  meet, 
Between  the  andiron's  straddling  feet, 
The  mug  of  cider  simmered  slow, 
The  apples  sputtered  in  a  row, 
And,  close  at  hand,  the  basket  stood 
With  nuts  from  brown  October's  wood. " 

Nor  is  the  merit  of  "Snow-Bound"  merely  descriptive. 
Throughout  it  you  will  find  phrases  which,  except  for  mere 
lyric  music,  have  a  simple  felicity  almost  final.  Take  the 


John  Greenleaf  Whittier  293 

couplet,  for  example,  in  which  he  speaks  of  his  aunt,  no 
longer  young,  who  never  married — 

"All  unprofaned  she  held  apart 
The  virgin  fancies  of  the  heart." 

Or  take  the  lines  in  which  he  remembers  a  sister,  dead 
early  in  life — 

"And  while  in  life's  late  afternoon, 
Where  cool  and  long  the  shadows  grow, 
I  walk  to  meet  the  night  that  soon 
Shall  shape  and  shadow  overflow, 
I  cannot  feel  that  thou  art  far. " 

Throughout  "Snow-Bound"  you  may  discover  lines  as 
excellent  as  these. 

Such  vividness  as  distinguishes  the  descriptive  passages  New 
of  "Snow-Bound"  appears  throughout  Whittier's  descrip- 
tive  verse.     Here,  for  example,  are  some  lines  from  the 
"Prelude"  which  take  one  to  the  very  heart  of  our  drowsy 
New  England  summers : 

"Along  the  roadside,  like  the  flowers  of  gold 
The  tawny  Incas  for  their  gardens  wrought, 
Heavy  with  sunshine  droops  the  golden-rod, 
And  the  red  pennons  of  the  cardinal-flowers 
Hang  motionless  upon  their  upright  staves. 
The  sky  is  hot  and  hazy,  and  the  wind, 
Wing-weary  with  its  long  flight  from  the  South, 
Unfelt;  yet,  closely  scanned,  yon  maple  leaf 
With  faintest  motion,  as  one  stirs  in  dreams, 
Confesses  it.     The  locust  by  the  wall 
Stabs  the  noon-silence  with  his  sharp  alarm. 
A  single  hay -cart  down  the  dusty  road 
Creaks  slowly,  with  its  driver  fast  asleep 
On  the  load's  top.     Against  the  neighboring  hill, 


294      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

Huddled  along  the  stone  wall's  shady  side, 
The  sheep  show  white,  as  if  a  snowdrift  still 
Defied  the  dog-star.     Through  the  open  door 
A  drowsy  smell  of  flowers — gray  heliotrope, 
And  white  sweet  clover,  and  shy  mignonette — 
Comes  faintly  in,  and  silent  chorus  lends 
To  the  pervading  symphony  of  peace." 

At  first  sight  perhaps  commonplace,  passages  like  this 
as  they  grow  familiar  prove  more  and  more  admirable 
in  their  simple  truth.  Of  course  they  lack  lyric  beauty. 
Whittier's  metrical  range  was  very  narrow,  and  his  rhymes 
were  often  abominable.  But  whenever  he  dealt  with  the 
country  he  knew  so  well,  he  had  an  instinctive  perception 
of  those  obvious  facts  which  are  really  most  characteristic, 
and  within  which  are  surely  included  its  unobtrusive  beauty 
and  its  slowly  winning  charm.  With  this  excellent  sim 
plicity  of  perception  he  combined  excellent  simplicity  of 
heart  and  phrase. 

Narrative  In  general,  of  course,  the  most  popular  literature  is 
narrative.  So  Whittier's  Yankee  ballads  often  seem  his 
most  obvious  works, — "Skipper  Ireson's  Ride,"  for  ex 
ample,  or  that  artlessly  sentimental "  Maud  Muller,"  where 
a  New  England  judge  is  made  to  play  the  part  of  knight- 
errant  of  romance.  Like  his  admirable  poetry  of  Nature, 
these  are  simple  and  sincere.  In  sentiment,  too,  the  first 
is  fervid.  Both  in  conception  and  in  phrase,  however, 
these,  with  all  the  rest  we  may  let  them  stand  for,  are  so 
commonplace  that  one  finds  critical  admiration  out  of  the 
question. 

Whittier's  true  claim  to  remembrance  will  rest  on  no 
such  popularity  as  this,  even  though  that  popularity  chance 
to  be  more  than  momentary.  In  the  first  place,  his  simple 


John  Greenleaf  Whittier  295 

pictures  of  New  England  Nature  are  often  excellent.  In 
the  second  place,  the  fervor  of  his  lifelong  faith  in  the  cause 
of  human  freedom  sometimes  breathed  undying  fire  into 
verses  which  he  made  concerning  the  conflict  with  slavery. 
Another  trait  which  he  possessed  is  rare  in  tempera 
ments  eager  for  reform.  This  is  magnanimity.  It  ap 
pears  nowhere  more  clearly  than  in  almost  the  only  de 
parture  from  chronological  order  in  the  final  collection 
of  his  works,  which  he  himself  arranged.  Until  1850, 
Webster,  whose  devotion  to  the  ideal  of  Union  had  com 
pelled  him  to  oppose  every  aggression  of  the  South,  had 
been  held  by  the  antislavery  men  an  heroic  leader.  His 
Seventh  of  March  Speech,  which  supported  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law,  brought  down  on  him  a  storm  of  antislavery 
indignation  never  expressed  more  fervently  than  in  a  poem 
by  Whittier,  still  generally  included  in  popular  collections 
of  American  lyrics.  He  called  this  poem  "Ichabod;"  ichabod. 
and  here  are  some  of  its  verses — 

"So  fallen!  so  lost!  the  light  withdrawn 

Which  once  he  wore! 
The  glory  from  his  gray  hairs  gone 
Forevermore ! 


"Let  not  the  land  once  proud  of  him 

Insult  him  now, 

Nor  brand  with  deeper  shame  the  dim, 
Dishonored  brow. 

"But  let  its  humbled  sons  instead, 

From  sea  to  lake, 
A  long  lament,  as  for  the  dead, 
In  sadness  make. 


296      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

"Then  pay  the  reverence  of  old  days 

To  his  dead  fame; 

Walk  backwards,  with  averted  gaze, 
And  hide  the  shame!" 

In  1850  no  man  condemned  Webster  more  fiercely  or 
more  sincerely  than  Whittier.  But  two  years  after  "  Icha- 
bod"  saw  the  light,  Webster  was  dead;  and  it  was  nine 
before  the  Civil  War  broke  out;  and  Whittier  survived 
for  almost  thirty  years  longer.  In  1880,  reflecting  on  the 
past,  he  wrote  about  Webster  again.  This  poem  he 
The  Lost  called  "The  Lost  Occasion,"  and  in  his  collected  works  he 
put  it  directly  after  the  "Ichabod"  which  he  had  so  fer 
vently  written  thirty  years  before.  "The  Lost  Occasion" 
has  generally  been  neglected  by  the  makers  of  American 
anthologies,  so  "Ichabod"  is  traditionally  supposed  to 
express  Whittier's  final  feeling  about  Daniel  Webster.  In 
this  case  tradition  is  unjust  to  both  men.  The  single 
deviation  from  chronology  in  Whittier's  collected  works 
shows  that  the  poet  desired  his  final  sentiment  concerning 
our  greatest  Whig  statesman  to  be  phrased  in  no  lines 
denunciatory,  but  rather  in  such  words  as  these — 

"Thou  shouldst  have  lived  to  feel  below 
Thy  feet  Disunion's  fierce  upthron; 
The  late-sprung  mine  that  underlaid 
Thy  sad  concessions  vainly  made." 
****** 

"No  stronger  voice  than  thine  had  then 
Called  out  the  utmost  might  of  men, 
To  make  the  Union's  charter  free 
And  strengthen  law  by  liberty. 
****** 

"Wise  men  and  strong  we  did  not  lack; 
But  still,  with  memory  turning  back, 


John  Greenleaf  Whittier  297 

In  the  dark  hours  we  thought  of  thee, 
And  thy  lone  grave  beside  the  sea. 
****** 
"But,  where  thy  native  mountains  bare 
Their  foreheads  to  diviner  air, 
Fit  emblem  of  enduring  fame, 
One  lofty  summit  keeps  thy  name. 

Sunrise  and  sunset  lay  thereon 

With  hands  of  light  their  benison, 

The  stars  of  midnight  pause  to  set 

Their  jewels  in  its  coronet. 

And  evermore  that  mountain  mass 

Seems  climbing  from  the  shadowy  pass 

To  light,  as  if  to  manifest 

Thy  nobler  self,  thy  life  at  best!" 

Throughout  the  records  of  antislavery  you  may  find  Summary, 
passionate  indignation  and  self-devoted  sincerity ;  but  you 
shall  search  those  records  far  and  wide  before  you  shall 
find  a  mate  for  this  magnanimous  utterance.  As  time 
passes,  Whittier  seems  more  and  more  the  man  among  the 
antislavery  leaders  of  New  England  whose  spirit  came 
nearest  to  greatness. 

So,  as  the  years  pass,  he  tends  to  emerge  from  the  group 
of  mere  reformers,  and  to  range  himself  too  with  the  true 
men  of  letters.  To  them — to  the  literature  of  renascent 
New  England,  as  distinguished  from  its  politics,  its  scholar 
ship,  its  religion,  its  philosophy,  or  its  reform — we  are 
now  to  turn.  And  we  have  come  to  this  literature  almost 
insensibly,  in  considering  the  work  of  one  who,  beginning 
life  as  a  passionate  reformer,  may  remain  for  posterity  a 
living  poet. 


X 

THE    ATLANTIC    MONTHLY 

REFERENCES 

THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY:  The  Atlantic  Index,  1857-1888,  Boston, 
1889,  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  contents  of  the  magazine.  One  may  also 
consult  Scudder's  Lowell,  Morse's  Holmes,  and  other  biographies  of  the 
chief  contributors  to  the  Atlantic. 

FIELDS:  There  is  no  collected  edition  of  Fields's  works;  for  the  separate 
titles  of  his  books,  several  of  which  are  still  in  print  (Boston:  Houghton), 
see  Foley,  91-92.  Mrs.  Fields  wrote  a  volume  of  Biographical  Notes 
and  Personal  Sketches  of  her  husband,  which  was  published  at  Boston 
(by  Houghton)  in  1881.  There  are  selections  from  Fields  in  Griswold's 
Poetry,  573-575;  Stedman,  181-182;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VII, 
309-3ii- 

IN  the  autumn  of  1857  there  appeared  in  Boston  the  first 
number  of  the  periodical,  still  in  existence,  which  more  than 
anything  else  represents  trfe  literature  of  the  New  England 
Renaissance.  In  the  early  years  of  the  century,  the  char 
acteristic  publication  of  literary  Boston  was  the  North 
American  Review.  In  the  '405  the  Dial,  limited  as  was  its 
circulation,  was  equally  characteristic  of  contemporary 
literary  energy.  From  1857  until  the  renascent  literature 
of  New  England  came  to  an  end,  its  vehicle  was  the  Atlan 
tic  Monthly. 

This  youngest  and  last  of  the  native  periodicals  of  Bos 
ton  may  be  distinguished  from  its  predecessors  in  various 
ways.  Obviously,  for  one  thing,  while  the  primary  func 
tion  of  the  North  American  Review  was  scholarly,  and  that 
of  the  Dial  philosophic,  that  of  the  Atlantic  was  literary. 

298 


The  Atlantic  Monthly  299 

In  the  second  place,  the  North  American  Review  was 
started  by  young  men  who  at  the  moment  had  no  vehicle 
for  expression,  and  who  felt  that  they  had  a  good  deal  to 
say.  The  Dial  was  similarly  started  by  a  group  of  en 
thusiasts  comparatively  little  known  in  letters.  The  At 
lantic,  on  the  other  hand,  did  little  more  than  afford  a 
regular  means  of  publication  for  men  whose  reputation 
was  already  established.  The  earlier  periodicals  began 
youthfully;  the  Atlantic  was  always  mature. 

We  have  spent  what  may  have  seemed  excessive  time 
on  the  environment  of  the  mature  literature  which  at  last 
thus  concentrated.  Yet  without  a  constant  sense  of  the 
influences  which  were  alive  in  New  England,  this  literature 
can  hardly  be  understood.  It  was  all  based  on  the  tra 
ditions  of  a  rigid  old  society,  Puritan  in  origin  and  im- 
memorially  fixed  in  structure.  To  this,  at  the  beginning  Renascent 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  came  that  impulse  of  new  life  A 
which  expressed  itself  in  such  varied  ways, — in  the  classi 
cally  rounded  periods  of  our  most  finished  oratory;  in  the 
scholarship  which  ripened  into  our  lasting  works  of  history; 
and  in  the  hopeful  dreams  of  the  Unitarians,  passing  in 
sensibly  into  the  nebulous  philosophy  of  the  Transcenden- 
talists,  and  finally  into  first  fantastic  and  soon  militant 
reform.  Each  of  these  phases  of  our  Renaissance  gave  us 
names  which  are  still  memorable:  Webster,  Everett,  and 
Choate;  Ticknor,  Prescott,  Motley,  and  Parkman;  Em 
erson,  Margaret  Fuller,  and  Thoreau;  Theodore  Parker, 
Phillips,  and  Sumner;  Mrs.  Stowe,  and  Whittier.  Thus 
grouped  together,  we  can  see  these  people  to  have  been 
so  dissimilar,  and  sometimes  so  antagonistic,  that  human 
friendship  between  them,  or  even  mutual  understanding, 
was  hardly  possible.  At  the  same  time,  as  we  look  at 


300       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

them  together,  we  must  see  that  all  possessed  in  common  a 
trait  which  marks  them  as  of  the  old  New  England  race. 
All  were  strenuously  earnest;  and  though  the  earnestness 
of  some  confined  itself  to  matters  of  this  world, — to  history, 
to  politics,  or  to  reform, — while  that  of  others  was  centred, 
like  that  of  the  Puritan  fathers,  more  on  the  unseen  eter 
nities,  not  one  of  them  was  ever  free  from  a  constant  ideal 
of  principle,  of  duty.  Nor  was  the  idealism  of  these  men 
always  confined  to  matters  of  conduct.  In  Emerson,  more 
certainly  than  in  the  fathers  themselves,  one  feels  the  cease 
less  effort  of  New  England  to  grasp,  to  understand,  to 
formulate  the  realities  which  the  evolutionists  call  un 
knowable.  The  New  Englanders  of  our  Renaissance 
were  no  longer  Puritans;  they  had  discarded  the  dogmas 
of  Calvinism ;  but  so  far  as  Puritanism  was  a  lifelong  effort 
to  recognize  and  to  follow  ideals  which  can  never  be  ap 
prehended  by  unaided  human  senses,  they  were  still  Puri 
tan  at  heart. 

Spirit  of  Herein  lies  the  trait  which  most  clearly  distinguishes 

land  and  of  New  England  from  those  neighboring  Middle  States  where 
the  Middle  the  letters  of  America  sprang  into  life  a  few  years  earlier. 
In  both,  the  impulse  to  expression  which  appeared  so  early 
in  the  nineteenth  century  may  be  held  only  an  Ameri 
can  phase  of  the  world-wide  tendency  to  revolution  which 
during  the  century  effected  so  many  changes  in  Europe. 
To  both,  too,  this  impulse  came  in  a  guise  which  may 
make  the  term  "Renaissance"  seem  applicable  equally  to 
both.  In  New  York,  however,  the  impulse  tended  im 
mediately  to  the  production  of  an  imitative  literature 
which  had  done  its  best  work  by  1832;  in  New  England, 
meanwhile,  that  same  year  was  marked  by  Emerson's 
sermon  on  the  Lord's  Supper.  Oratory  was  at  its  best; 


The    Atlantic    Monthly  301 

scholarship  was  swiftly  developing;  Unitarianism  had 
completely  dominated  Boston;  Transcendentalism  was 
just  beginning;  and  not  only  destructive  reform  but  pure 
letters  too  were  still  to  come. 

With  the  Renaissance  there  came  at  last  to  New  Eng 
land  an  eager  knowledge  of  all  the  phases  of  human  thought 
and  expression  which  enrich  the  records  of  modern  civili 
zation.  The  temper  in  which  this  new  learning  was  re 
ceived  there  is  nowhere  better  typified  than  by  the  title  and 
the  contents  of  Emerson's  Representative  Men  (1850). 
The  personages  whom  he  chose  to  group  under  this  every-  Enthusi- 
day  title  were  Plato,  the  Philosopher;  Swedenborg,  the  newiy°dis- 
Mystic;  Montaigne,  the  Sceptic;  Shakspere,  the  Poet;  covered 
Napoleon,  the  Man  of  the  World ;  and  Goethe,  the  Writer. 
To  Emerson,  in  short,  and  to  the  New  England  of  which  in 
his  peculiar  phrase  he  was  a  representative  man,  the  whole 
range  of  literature  was  suddenly  opened.  Two  centuries 
of  national  inexperience  had  deprived  the  region  not  only 
of  critical  power,  but  for  the  moment  of  all  suspicion  that 
this  was  lacking.  With  the  fresh  enthusiasm  of  discovery 
New  England  faced  this  newly  found  company  of  the  good 
and  great,  feeling  chiefly  that  even  like  ourselves  these 
were  men. 

Fifty  years  and  more  have  done  their  work  since  those 
aspiring  old  times.  Nowadays  the  fact  that  a  book — 
ancient  or  modern — is  an  acknowledged  classic  is  apt  to 
make  people  assume  that  it  cannot  be  interesting.  In  the1 
full  flush  of  our  Renaissance,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
was  left  in  us  something  like  the  artless  unconsciousness 
of  healthy  children,  who  are  ready  to  enjoy  anything  no 
matter  whether  other  people  admire  it  or  not.  Partly  be 
cause  of  this  eager  delight  in  foreign  literature,  we  were  a 


302      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

little  slow  to  make  literature  for  ourselves.     It  is  not  that 
we  lacked  it,  of  course.    The  names  we  have  already  con 
sidered  belong  not  only  to  the  history  of  those  various 
phases  of  the  Renaissance  with  which  we  have  chosen  to 
consider  them,  but  to  that  of  letters,  too.     Hardly  one 
of  these  men,  however,  was  primarily  literary.    All  de 
serve  distinction  in  literary  history  chiefly  because  they 
did  with  loving  care  the  writing 
which  they  held  their  earthly  busi 
ness. 

So  the  literature  of  New  England 
matured  slowly.    It  is  more  than 
an  accident  of  date  that  the  years 
when  the  Knickerbocker  magazine 
began  to  fade  out  of  New  York, 
and  with  it  the  whole  elder  school 
of  which  it  marked  the  blameless 
decline,  saw  in  Boston  the  estab 
lishment   of   the    first    periodical 
whose  function  was  chiefly  literary. 
The  innocent  old  literature  of  pleasure  which  began  with 
the  novels  of  Brockden  Brown  was  truly  exhausted.     The 
literature  of  New  England,  meanwhile,  which  had  been 
ripening  as  its  elder  was  falling  into  decay,  had  only  just 
reached  the  point  where  it  demanded  a  regular  vehicle  of 
The  Atian-    expression.    This  vehicle  came,  to  be  sure,  only  when  the 
vehicle  of     strength  of  the  New  England  Renaissance  was  beginning 
Renascent    to  fail.     None  of  the  New  England  men  of  letters,  how 
ever,  had  begun  to  feel  the  infirmities  of  age,  when  one  and 
all  found  a  common  meeting-ground  in  the  pages  of  the 
Atlantic  Monthly. 

The  Atlantic  is  thus  associated  with  almost  every  name 


The  Atlantic  Monthly  303 

eminent  in  our  later  New  England  letters;  but  most  closely 
of  all,  perhaps,  with  that  of  a  man  whose  presence  in  Bos 
ton  had  incalculable  influence  on  local  literary  life.  This 
was  JAMES  THOMAS  FIELDS  (1817-1881),  for  many  years 
publisher  of  the  Atlantic,  and  from  1862  to  1870  its  editor. 

Fields  was  born  at  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  and  Fields, 
educated  only  in  the  common  schools  there.  When  a 
mere  boy  he  began  active  life  as  a  clerk  in  a  Boston  book 
store.  At  twenty-two  he  was  already  partner  in  a  pub 
lishing  house;  and  he  remained  an  active  publisher  in 
Boston  for  thirty-five  years,  retiring  with  a  comfortable 
fortune.  Fields  is  memorable,  however,  not  because  of 
his  practical  gifts,  nor  yet  because  in  a  modest  way  he 
was  himself  a  man  of  letters,  but  rather  because  of  his 
deep  and  excellent  influence  on  the  literature  of  New 
England. 

From  boyhood  Fields  had  'oved  literature;  and  this 
enthusiasm  combined  with  great  personal  amiability  and 
with  sympathetic  kindness  of  nature  to  make  him,  before 
he  reached  middle  life,  the  intimate  personal  friend  of 
every  man  of  letters  in  New  England,  and  of  many  such 
men  in  the  old  world  too.  The  result  of  this  is  evident  to 
any  one  who  will  glance  at  the  trade-lists  of  the  firm  of 
which  he  was  for  years  the  head.  Here,  to  go  no  further, 
you  will  find  the  works  of  Emerson,  Thoreau,  Whittier, 
Longfellow,  Lowell,  Holmes,  and  Hawthorne.  There 
are  plenty  of  other  honorable  American  names  there,  too, 
as  well  as  those  of  eminent  foreign  writers.  For  one  thing, 
Fields  was  the  first  to  collect  and  to  set  forth  in  systematic 
form  the  work  of  Thomas  De  Quincey,  until  Fields's 
time  lost  in  numberless  periodicals.  As  a  sincere  lover  of 
letters  and  a  publisher  of  unusual  tact  and  skill,  Fields, 


304      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

during  the  years  between  1840  and  1870,  afforded  the 
literary  men  of  New  England  a  rare  opportunity.  One 
and  all  had  constantly  near  by  a  skilful  publisher,  who 
was  at  the  same  time  a  wise  counsellor,  a  warm  personal 
friend,  and  an  ardent  admirer.  The  stimulus  to  literary 
production  afforded  by  such  a  patron  of  letters  can  hardly 
be  estimated. 


XI 

HENRY    WADSWORTH    LONGFELLOW 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Riverside  Edition,  n  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1886;  Cam 
bridge  Edition,  i  vol.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1893.  The  latter  does  not  in 
clude  Longfellow's  translation  of  Dante. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  *Samuel  Longfellow,  Life  and  Letters  of 
Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow,  3  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1891;  G.  R. 
Carpenter,  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow,  Boston:  Small,  Maynard  & 
Co.,  1901  (BB);  T.  W.  Higginson,  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow,  Boston: 
Houghton,  1902  (AML);  E.  S.  Robertson,  Life  of  Henry  Wadsworth  Long 
fellow,  London:  Scott,  1887  (GW);  *Stedman,  Poets  of  America,  Chapter 
vi. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  E.  S.  Robertson's  Longfellow,  i-xii  (at  end);  Foley, 
174-180;  Longfellow  Collector's  Handbook,  a  Bibliography  of  First  Edi 
tions,  New  York:  Benjamin,  1885. 

SELECTIONS:  Carpenter,  248-256;  Duyckinck,  II,  445-450;  Griswold, 
Poets,  356—362;  Griswold,  Prose,  496—502;  Hart,  Contemporaries,  IV,  No. 
108;  Stedman,  111-126;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VI,  282-324. 

AMONG  the  men  of  letters  who  in  mature  life  gathered  Life. 
about  the  Atlantic  Monthly  the  most  popular  was  HENRY 
WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW  (1807-1882).  Born  at  Port 
land,  Maine,  where  his  father  was  a  lawyer,  he  went  at 
fifteen  to  Bowdoin  College,  at  Brunswick,  Maine,  where  he 
took  his  degree  in  1825.  At  that  time  there  were  also 
at  Bowdoin  J.  S.  C.  Abbott,  the  historian,  Franklin  Pierce, 
\vho  became  President  of  the  United  States,  and  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne.  During  these  college  years,  too,  the  spirit  of 
Renaissance  was  freshest  in  New  England  air.  Chan- 
ning's  great  sermon  on  Unitarianism  had  been  preached 


Smith 
Professor 
ship. 


306       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

in  1819;  Emerson's  sermon  on  the  Lord's  Supper,  which 
marks  the  beginning  of  transcendental  disintegration,  was 
not  preached  until  1832.  Longfellow's  youth,  in  brief, 
came  just  when  the  religious  and  philosophic  buoyancy 
of  the  New  England  Renaissance  was  surging;  and  this 
affected  him  all  the  more  because  in  a  region  and  at  a 

college  where  old-fashioned  or 
thodoxy  still  prevailed,  he  was 
from  the  beginning  a  Unitarian. 
When  Longfellow  graduated 
from  Bowdoin  at  the  age  of 
nineteen,  Ticknor's  teaching  at 
Harvard,  then  in  its  seventh 
year,  had  made  such  general 
impression  that  the  authorities 
of  Bowdoin  began  to  desire 
something  similar  there.  In 
1826,  accordingly,  Longfellow 
went  abroad  under  an  agree 
ment  to  prepare  himself,  by  a  three  years'  study  of  mod 
ern  languages,  for  a  Bowdoin  professorship  which 
should  resemble  Ticknor's  at  Harvard.  In  1829  he 
came  home  with  a  reading  knowledge  of  Spanish,  Ital 
ian,  French,  and  German,  and  began  to  teach  at  Bowdoin. 
Six  years  later,  when  Ticknor  retired  from  teaching,  he 
recommended  Longfellow  to  the  Corporation  of  Harvard ; 
and  Longfellow,  who  up  to  that  time  had  had  little  personal 
relation  with  Cambridge,  accepted  the  Smith  professorship. 
To  prepare  himself  for  this  wider  field  of  work,  he  went 
abroad  for  a  year  more.  In  1836  he  began  his  teaching 
at  Harvard,  which  continued  for  eighteen  years., 
As  these  years  went  on,  Longfellow,  like  Ticknor,  felt 


Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow         307 

more  and  more  how  gravely  the  drudgery  of  teaching 
must  interfere  with  work  which  time  may  well  prove  more 
lasting  and  significant.  His  constant,  enthusiastic  wish 
was  to  be  a  poet.  In  1854  he  consequently  resigned  the 
professorship.  The  next  year  it  was  given  to  James 
Russell  Lowell,  who  held  it,  at  least  in  title,  until  his  death 
in  1891. 

Up  to  1854,  Longfellow,  although  already  popular  as  a 
poet,  remained  a  college  professor  of  a  new  and  radical 
subject.  Though  he  always  loved  this  subject,  he  hated 
the  use  which  his  professional  circumstances  compelled 
him  to  make  of  it.  The  instinct  which  made  him  recoil 
from  the  drudgery  of  teaching  was  sound :  his  true  mission 
was  not  to  struggle  with  unwilling  hearers;  it  was  rather 
to  set  forth  in  words  which  should  find  their  way  to  the 
eager  readers  of  a  continent  the  spirit  as  distinguished 
from  the  letter  of  the  literatures  with  which  as  a  professor 
he  conscientiously  dealt  so  long. 

From  1854  to  the  end,  Longfellow  lived  as  a  profes-  Longfellow 
sional  author  in  that  fine  old  Cambridge  house  which  before 
his  time  was  conspicuous  as  the  deserted  mansion  of  some 
Tories  exiled  by  the  Revolution,  and  which  is  now  conse 
crated  as  the  home  of  the  most  widely  popular  and  beloved 
American  poet.  Long  before  he  died,  his  reputation  as  a 
man  of  letters  was  so  firmly  established  that  people  had 
almost  forgotten  how  he  had  once  been  a  college  teacher. 

For  this  forgetfulness  there  is  plenty  of  reason.  Though 
throughout  Longfellow's  professorship  he  had  felt  its 
duties  seriously  to  prevent  literary  labor,  he  had  produced 
during  his  incumbency  much  of  his  most  familiar  verse. 
His  Voices  oj  the  Night  appeared  in  1839,  his  Evangeline 
in  1847,  and  his  Golden  Legend  in  1851.  Even  before 


308      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

he  laid  his  professorship  down,  there  were  hundreds  who 
knew  him  as  a  poet  for  every  one  who  knew  that  he  was  a 
teacher.  In  point  of  fact,  too,  the  work  which  he  did  dur 
ing  the  twenty-seven  years  of  his  purely  literary  life  hardly 
extended,  although  it  certainly  maintained,  the  poetical 


LONGFELLOW'S  HOME,  CRAIGIE  HOUSE,  CAMBRIDGE. 

reputation  which  he  had  already  established  during  his 
twenty-five  years  of  teaching.  To  understand  his  real 
character  as  a  poet,  however,  we  must  constantly  keep  in 
mind  that  other  profession  of  teacher  which  he  so  faithfully 
practised  for  a  full  third  of  his  life. 

The  subjects  which  Longfellow  taught  now  have  a  famil 
iar  place  in  every  good  college.  In  his  time  they  resem 
bled  some  newly  discovered  continent,  where  whole  realms 
of  country  are  still  unknown.  To  Longfellow,  accordingly, 
the  true  business  of  his  professorship  seemed  like  that  of 
an  enthusiastic  explorer.  The  languages  which  he  learned 


Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow        309 

so  eagerly  never  seemed  to  him  deserving  of  lifelong  study 
for  themselves;  they  were  merely  vehicles  of  expression 
which  carried  him  into  new  and  wonderful  worlds  of  beau 
tiful  old  humanity.  These  vehicles  were  to  be  loved  so 
far  as  in  beautiful  form  they  conveyed  to  us  thoughts  in 
trinsically  beautiful  and  noble,  but  they  were  at  best 
vehicles,  whose  use  was  to  lead  us  into  inexhaustible 
regions  of  humanity,  unknown  except  by  vague  tradition  to 
our  American  ancestors. 

In  his  love  for  literature  thus  considered,  Longfellow  Academic 
never  wavered.  What  vexed  him  throughout  the  years 
of  his  teaching  was  not  the  matter  with  which  he  dealt ;  it 
was  rather  that  he  shrank  from  imparting  literature  to  un 
willing  pupils,  that  he  longed  to  saturate  himself  with  it 
and  to  express  unfettered  the  sentiments  which  it  unfail 
ingly  stirred  within  him.  These  sentiments,  which  he 
uttered  in  a  manner  so  welcome  to  all  America,  seemed 
to  him  as  spontaneous  as  ever  inspiration  seemed  to  poets 
who  have  heard  the  true  whisper  of  the  Muse.  Yet  one 
who  now  studies  his  work  can  hardly  help  feeling  that  even 
though  he  never  suspected  the  fact,  his  temper  as  a  man 
of  letters  was  almost  as  academic  as  was  the  profession  to 
which  he  reluctantly  devoted  year  after  year  of  his  maturity. 

Even  as  a  teacher  Longfellow  remained  a  man  of 
letters ;  he  felt  constantly  stirred  to  what  he  believed  origi 
nal  expression,  and  he  was  never  content  unless  he  was 
phrasing  as  well  as  he  could  the  emotions  which  arose 
within  him  amid  all  the  drudgery  of  work.  But  if  in  this 
aspect  Longfellow  was  a  genuine  man  of  letters,  he  was  all 
the  while  an  academic  scholar;  for  the  influence  which 
stirred  him  most  was  not  what  he  experienced,  but  rather 
what  he  read.  From  beginning  to  end  he  was  inspired 


310      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  by  noble  and  beautiful  records  of 
facts  long  since  dead  and  gone.  Whoever  will  take  the 
trouble  to  look  through  an  index  of  the  titles  of  Longfel 
low's  poems  will  at  once  be  struck  by  the  number  of  sub 
jects  suggested  by  foreign  travel  or  by  reading  in  foreign 
literature.  Among  these  are  most  of  the  Tales  of  a  Way 
side  Inn  (1849-1873),  the  greater  part  of  Christus  (1849- 
1872),  which  Longfellow  considered  one  of  his  most  im 
portant  poems;  the  translation  of  Dante's  Dimna  Corn- 
media  (1867)  and  many  shorter  translations  from  French, 
German,  Spanish,  Italian,  Norse,  Anglo-Saxon,  and  other 
sources;  the  romances  Outre- Mer  (1835),  Hyperion 
(1839),  and  Kavanagh  (1849);  and  many  short  poems  of 
various  degrees  of  originality. 

Though  this  limitation  marks  Longfellow  apart  from 
those  great  poets  who  have  immortally  expressed  the 
meaning  of  actual  life,  it  had  at  once  the  grace  of  sincerity, 
and  the  added  grace  of  that  natural  gift  which  was  per 
haps  Longfellow's  most  salient.  His  taste  was  unerring. 
Wherever  he  met  the  beauties  of  literature  he  delighted  in 
them  instinctively;  and  in  his  instinctive  feelings  about 
literature  there  was  something  very  like  the  confidence  in 
human  nature  which  inspired  the  world  in  which  he  lived. 
To  him  literature  was  a  region  of  delight  so  fresh  that  he 
could  rejoice  in  its  beauties,  which  he  perceived  with  such 
instant  tact,  and  could  honestly  be  blind  to  everything  not 
beautiful  or  noble. 

The  impression  which  he  made  on  his  first  readers  has 
never  been  better  phrased  than  by  Mr.  Stedman — 

"A  new  generation  may  be  at  a  loss  to  conceive  the  effect  of  Long 
fellow's  work  when  it  first  began  to  appear.  I  may  convey  something 
of  this  by  what  is  at  once  a  memory  and  an  illustration.  Take  the 


Henry  Wadswortli  Longfellow         311 

case  of  a  child  whose  Sunday  outlook  was  restricted,  in  a  decaying 
Puritan  village,  to  a  wooden  meeting-house  of  the  old  Congregational 
type.  The  interior — plain,  colorless,  rigid  with  dull  white  pews  and 
dismal  galleries— increased  the  spiritual  starvation  of  a  young  nature 
unconsciously  longing  for  color  and  variety.  Many  a  child  like  this 
one,  on  a  first  holiday  visit  to  the  town,  seeing  the  vine-grown  walls, 
the  roofs  and  arches,  of  a  graceful  Gothic  church,  has  felt  a  sense  of 
something  rich  and  strange;  and  many,  now  no  longer  children,  can 
remember  that  the  impression  upon  entrance  was  such  as  the  stateli 
est  cathedral  now  could  not  renew.  The  columns  and  tinted  walls,  the 
ceiling  of  oak  and  blue,  the  windows  of  gules  and  azure  and  gold — • 
the  sendee,  moreover,  with  its  chant  and  organ-roll — all  this  enrap 
tured  and  possessed  them.  To  the  one  relief  hitherto  afforded  them, 
that  of  nature's  picturesqueness — which  even  Calvinism  endured 
without  compunction — was  added  a  new  joy,  a  glimpse  of  the  beauty 
and  sanctity  of  human  art.  A  similar  delight  awaited  the  first  readers 
of  Longfellow's  prose  and  verse.  Here  was  a  painter  and  a  romancer 
indeed,  who  had  journeyed  far  and  returned  with  gifts  for  all  at 
home,  and  who  promised  often  and  again  to 

'  sing  a  more  wonderful  song 
Or  tell  a  more  marvellous  tale.'" 

The  hold  which  Longfellow  thus  took  on  enthusiastic 
American  youth  he  soon  took  on  the  whole  reading  public 
of  our  country.  His  popularity  is  evident  in  our  general 
familiarity  with  the  creatures  of  his  fancy.  The  village 
blacksmith,  the  youth  who  bears  'mid  snow  and  ice  a  ban 
ner  with  the  strange  device  Excelsior,  the  skipper  wrecked 
on  the  reef  of  Norman's  Woe,  Evangeline,  Hiawatha, 
Miles  Standish,  John  Alden,  Priscilla  the  Puritan  maiden, 
and  even  Paul  Revere — figures  and  names  which  we  owe 
almost  wholly  to  Longfellow — he  has  made  us  apt  to  Limita- 
group  with  Bible  patriarchs  or  the  world-old  heroes  of 
antiquity.  Such  popularity  almost  implies  a  weakness. 
Profundity  of  substance,  or  excellence  of  form,  rarely 


31 2      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

touches  the  masses;  and  Longfellow's  very  popularity 
resulted  long  ago  in  a  reaction  against  him  among  the 
fastidious.  Even  in  early  days,  too,  when  his  popularity 
was  in  its  first  flush,  the  admiration  which  his  work  excited 
was  clouded  by  occasional  dissent.  Margaret  Fuller,  for 


LONGFELLOW   IN   HIS   LIBRARY. 

example,  conscientiously  devoted  to  the  extravagance  of 
Transcendental  philosophy,  found  Longfellow  shallow, 
and  said  so.  Poe  utterly  misunderstood  the  academic 
character  of  Longfellow's  mind,  and  accused  him  of  plagi 
arism.  And  there  was  more  such  criticism. 

Again,  Longfellow,  a  lifelong  friend  of  Charles  Sumner, 
always  sympathized  with  the  antislavery  movement;  and 
in  1842  he  published  some  poems  in  its  behalf.  These 
poems  are  perfectly  sincere;  but  one  needs  only  to  com- 


Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow         313 

pare  them  with  the  similar  work  of  Whittier  to  feel  more 
strongly  than  ever  Longfellow's  lack  of  passion. 

But  this  is  more  than  enough  of  his  faults  and  limita-  simplicity 
tions.     He  has  passed  from  us  too   lately  to  permit   us  *^ut 
to  dwell  upon   the   singular  serenity  and  beauty  of  his  Longfei- 
personal  life  and  character.     No  one  can  read  its  records  Qualities, 
or  remember  anything  of  its  facts  without  feeling  the  rare 
quality  of  a  nature  which  throughout  a  lifetime  could  persist 
unspoiled  by  prosperity  and  unbroken  by  poignant  personal 
sorrows.     To  be  sure,  he  was  never  passionate;  neither 
in  his  life  nor  in  his  verse  does  he  ever  seem  to  have  been 
swept  away  by  feeling.     On  the  other  hand,  as  we  have 
seen,  his  taste  was  unerring,  and  his  sentiment  gently  sym 
pathetic.     His  real  office  was  to  explore  and  to  make 
known  that  modern  literature  in  whose  beauty  he  delighted. 
And  if  the  verse  in  which  he  set  forth  his  delight  be  hardly 
of  the  kind  which  enriches  world-literature,  its  lucidity  of 
phrase  and  its  delicacy  of  rhythm  combine  to  give  it  a  sen 
timental  beauty  which  must  long  endear  it  to  those  who 
love  simplicity  of  heart. 

Thereby,  after  all,  Longfellow  comes  very  near  a  world- 
old  definition  of  literary  greatness,  which  has  sometimes 
been  held  the  virtue  of  those  who  think  the  thoughts  of  the  Summary, 
wise  and  who  speak  the  language  of  the  simple.  It  may 
be  that  he  knew  few  wise  thoughts  which  were  all  his  own; 
but  he  so  truly  loved  the  wisdom  and  the  beauty  of  those 
elder  literatures  which  he  was  the  first  of  Americans  fully 
to  recognize,  that  he  absorbed  in  a  way  of  his  own  the 
wisdom  which  the  good  and  the  great  of  the  past  had 
gleaned  from  experience.  At  first,  to  be  sure,  it  may  seem 
that  those  considerable  parts  of  his  work  which  deal  with 
our  native  country  are  of  another  stripe.  More  and  more, 


314      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

however,  one  grows  to  feel  that,  despite  the  subjects,  these 
are  not  indigenous  in  sentiment.  Rather,  for  the  first 
time,  they  illuminate  our  American  past  with  a  glow  of 
conventional  romance.  So  by  and  by  we  find  that  our 
gently  academic  poet  has  just  been  thinking  about  New 
England  in  such  moods  as  he  loved  in  countless  old-world 
poets  who  early  and  late  recorded  the  historic  romance  of 
Europe.  Yet  Longfellow  does  not  seem  to  have  been  con 
sciously  imitative.  He  sincerely  believed  that  he  was 
making  spontaneous  American  poetry.  Whatever  his 
lack  of  passion  or  imagination,  he  was  never  false  to  him 
self.  Whether  he  ever  understood  his  mission  it  is  hard 
to  say;  but  what  that  mission  was  is  clear;  and  so  is  the 
truth  that  he  was  a  faithful  missionary.  Never  relaxing 
his  effort  to  express  in  beautiful  language  meanings  which 
he  truly  believed  beautiful,  he  revealed  to  the  untutored 
new  world  the  romantic  beauty  of  the  old.  And  suffusing 
even  our  simple  native  traditions  with  a  glow  of  romance, 

"He  left  his  native  air  the  sweeter  for  his  song." 


XII 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Riverside  Edition,  n  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1890-92; 
Poetical  Works,  Cambridge  Edition,  i  vol.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1896; 
Last  Poems,  ed.  C.  E.  Norton,  Boston:  Houghton,  1895;  Letters,  ed. 
C.  E.  Norton,  2  vols.,  New  York:  Harper,  1894. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  H.  E.  Scudder,  James  Russell  Lowell:  A 
Biography,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1901;  E.  E.  Hale,  James  Russell 
Lowell  and  His  Friends,  Boston:  Houghton,  1899;  Wendell,  Stettigeri, 
205-217;  Stedman,  Poets  of  America,  Chapter  ix. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  180-187;  *Scudder's  Life,  II,  421-447. 

SELECTIONS:  *Carpenter,  363-382;  Duyckinck,  II,  661-663;  Gris- 
wold,  Poets,  566-572;  Hart,  Contemporaries,  IV,  Nos.  9,  15;  Stedman, 
202-218;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VII,  411-448. 

IN  1854  Longfellow  resigned  the  Smith  professorship  at  Life* 
Harvard  College.  The  next  year  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOW 
ELL  (1819-1891)  was  appointed  his  successor.  Up  to 
this  time  Lowell's  career,  though  more  limited  than  Long 
fellow's,  had  been  similar.  He  was  born  at  Cambridge, 
the  son  of  a  Unitarian  minister  whose  church  was  in  Bos 
ton.  In  1838  he  took  his  degree  at  Harvard;  he  studied 
law;  but  he  found  this  profession  distasteful,  and  his 
true  interest  was  in  letters.  For  fifteen  years  before  his 
appointment  to  the  Smith  professorship,  he  had  been 
professionally  a  literary  man.  From  this  time  on,  for  a 
full  twenty-two  years,  his  ostensible  profession  became 
what  Longfellow's  had  been  from  1836  to  1854,  and 

315 


316      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

Ticknor's  from  1817  to  1835, — the  teaching  of  modern 
languages  and  literature  to  Harvard  undergraduates. 

The  different  tasks  to  which  the  successive  Smith  pro 
fessors  addressed  themselves  might  once  have  seemed  a 
question  of  different  personalities ;  to-day  they  seem  rather 
a  question  of  developing  American  culture.  Ticknor's 
business  was  to  introduce  to  New  England  a  fresh  range  of 
learning;  and  accordingly  his  most  characteristic  publi 
cation  was  the  comprehensive,  accurate,  unimaginative 
History  0}  Spanish  Literature  (1849).  When,  after  twenty 
years,  Longfellow  succeeded  him,  America  knew  modern 
literature  by  name,  but,  except  perhaps  for  Bryant's  trans 
lations,  hardly  more.  Thus  it  became  Longfellow's  task 
to  make  pupils  enjoy  excursions  into  that  limitless  world 
of  modern  literature  which  for  America  was  still  newly 
discovered.  In  1855,  when  Lowell  came  to  his  work,  the 
conditions  had  altered  again.  The  main  facts  of  modern 
literature  had  become  familiar;  and  the  New  England 
Renaissance  had  greatly  stimulated  general  reading.  To 
the  generation  with  which  Lowell  came  to  his  maturity, 
the  great  modern  masters — Spenser  and  Shakspere, 
Dante  and  Cervantes  and  Goethe — were  thus  as  freshly 
delightful  as  the  old  Greeks  had  been  to  the  culture  of 
fifteenth-century  Italy.  Modern  literature  had  been 
discovered,  it  had  been  enthusiastically  explored,  and 
now  came  the  task  of  understanding  it.  So  as  a  college 
teacher,  and  as  a  critical  writer  too,  Lowell's  professional 
task  was  interpretative. 

The  eminence  which  finally  made  Lowell  a  national 
figure  came  not  from  his  teaching,  but  from  the  social 
accomplishment  with  which  from  i877toi885he  filled  the 
office  of  United  States  minister,  first  to  Spain  and  later  to 


James  Russell  Lowell 


317 


England.  This  fact  that  Lowell's  eminence  came  late 
in  life  is  characteristic.  Throughout  his  career,  as  man 
of  letters  and  as  teacher  alike,  he  had  been  at  once  helped 
and  hindered  by  peculiarities  of  temperament  conquer 
able  only  by  the  full  experience  of  a  slow  maturity. 
Born  and  brought  up  in  Cambridge,  when  Cambridge 
was  still  a  village,  he  was  fa 
miliar  with  the  now  vanished 
country  folk  of  old  New  Eng 
land.  From  youth  he  was 
passionately  fond  of  general 
reading,  in  days  when  this  led 
no  Yankee  away  from  sound 
literature.  Though  impa 
tient  of  minute  scholarship, 
too,  he  possessed  one  of  the 
most  important  traits  of  a 
minute  scholar:  by  nature  he 
was  aware  of  detail  in  every 
impression,  and  careful  of  it 
in  every  expression.  What 
truly  interested  him,  to  be 
sure,  in  life  and  in  books  alike,  were  the  traits  which  make 
books  and  life  most  broadly  human.  In  his  effort  to  un 
derstand  humanity,  however,  he  was  incessantly  hampered 
by  his  constitutional  sense  of  detail.  There  were  for  him 
aspects  in  which  both  books  and  life  seemed  profoundly 
serious;  there  were  other  aspects  in  which  even  the  most 
serious  phases  of  both  seemed  whimsically  absurd.  And 
truly  to  understand  the  complex  unity  of  humanity,  he 
felt,  you  must  somehow  fuse  all  these, — life  and  books, 
sublimity  and  humor,  light  and  twilight  and  shadow. 


Sense  of 
detail    an 
of  Incon 
gruous 
Impres 
sions. 


318      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

The  fact  that  Lowell  was  constantly  sensitive  to  incom 
patible  impressions  was  not  his  only  temperamental  ob 
stacle.  The  well-known  circumstance  that  he  was  unable 
satisfactorily  to  revise  his  writing  indicates  how  completely 
he  was  possessed  by  each  of  his  various  moods,  which 


ELMWOOD,  CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  BIRTHPLACE  OF  JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL. 

often  chased  one  another  in  bewildering  confusion,  yet 
again  left  him  for  prolonged  intervals  in  what  seemed  to 
him  states  of  hopeless  stagnation.  Throughout  this  un 
certainty,  however,  one  can  feel  in  his  literary  temper  two 
constant,  antagonistic  phases.  His  purity  of  taste,  par 
ticularly  as  he  grew  older,  approached  Longfellow's. 
Yet  all  the  while  he  was  incessantly  impelled  to  whimsical 
extravagance  of  thought,  feeling,  and  utterance.  The  trait 
appears  in  his  fondness  for  cramming  his  published  essays 
with  obscure  allusions  to  unheard  of  oddities  in  the  byways 
of  literature  and  history.  If  one  took  these  seriously,  they 


James  Russell  Lowell  319 

would  be  abominably  pedantic.  In  fact,  however,  this 
mannerism  was  only  a  rather  juvenile  prank.  Life  puzzled 
Lowell,  and  in  revenge  Lowell  amused  himself  by  puzzling 
the  people  he  talked  to  or  wrote  for.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
this  paradoxical  conflict  between  purity  of  taste  and  mis 
chievous  extravagance  of  temper  retarded  his  maturity. 

Lowell's  temperament,  again,  involved  somewhat  un 
usual  sensitiveness  to  the  influences  which  from  time  to 
time  surrounded  him.  Early  in  life  he  married  a  woman 
remarkable  alike  for  charms  and  for  gifts,  who  was  enthu 
siastically  devoted  to  the  reforms  then  in  the  air.  It  was 
partly  because  of  her  influence,  apparently,  that  Lowell  for 
a  while  proved  so  hot-headed  a  reformer.  After  her  pre 
mature  death  this  phase  of  his  temper  became  less  evident. 
It  was  revived,  of  course,  by  the  passionate  days  of  civil 
war,  when  he  upheld  extreme  Northern  sentiments  with 
all  his  might;  and  the  depth  of  his  experience  finally  re 
sulted  in  the  "  Commemoration  Ode,"  which  chiefly  entitles 
him  to  consideration  as  a  serious  poet.  Yet  this  ode  itself, 
though  quickly  written  and  little  revised,  is  marked  rather 
by  exceptionally  sustained  seriousness  of  feeling  than  by 
anything  which  seems  simply,  sensuously  passionate. 
One  of  the  traits  for  which  you  must  search  Lowell's  vol 
umes  long  is  lyrical  spontaneity.  Lowell  was  a  man  of 
deep,  but  constantly  various  and  whimsically  incongruous, 
emotional  nature,  whose  impulse  to  expression  was  con 
stantly  hampered  by  all  manner  of  importunate  external 
impressions. 

For  all  this,  the  chances  are  that,  like  Longfellow,  Low-  vision  of 
ell  would  have  been  apt  to  consider  himself  most  seriously  ^[  Lau 
as  a  poet;  and  certainly  his  poems  most  clearly  express 
his  individuality.     His  first  volume  of  verse  appeared  in 


320      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

1841,  three  years  after  his  graduation,  and  in  1844  and 
1848  he  published  other  such  volumes.  In  these  there  is 
nothing  particularly  characteristic.  Honest,  careful,  sin 
cere  enough,  the  work  seems;  but  except  for  the  eminence 
finally  attained  by  its  author  little  of  it  would  attract  at 
tention  to-day.  This  early  verse  reached  its  acme  in  the 
Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,  published  in  1848.  The  familiar 
stanza  from  the  prelude  to  Part  I,  beginning,  "And  what 
is  so  rare  as  a  day  in  June?"  is  typical  of  the  whole.  It  is 
the  work  of  a  man  who  has  read  a  great  deal  of  poetry, 
and  who  is  thus  impelled  to  write.  Somewhat  in  the 
mood  of  Wordsworth — to  whom  three  stanzas  before  he 
has  alluded — he  tries  to  express  the  impression  made  upon 
him  by  Nature.  He  succeeds  only  in  making  Nature  seem 
a  pretty  phase  of  literature.  It  is  all  very  serious,  no 
doubt,  and  sweet  in  purpose;  but  it  is  never  spontaneously 
lyric. 

In  1848  also  came  two  other  publications,  which  show  a 
very  different  Lowell ;  one  is  the  Fable  for  Critics,  the  other 
the  first  collection  of  the  Biglow  Papers,  which  had  begun 
to  appear  in  the  Boston  Courier  two  years  earlier.  In  a 
study  like  ours,  the  Fable  for  Critics  is  a  useful  document. 
Ten  years  out  of  college  and  already  a  professional  writer, 
alertly  alive  to  the  contemporary  condition  of  American 
letters,  Lowell  at  last  permitted  himself  to  write  with 
unrestricted  freedom.  The  result  is  queer.  The  fable, 
so  far  as  there  is  any,  proves  as  commonplace  as  the 
Vision  of  Sir  Launfal;  and,  besides,  it  is  obscured  by  such 
whimsicality  and  pedantry  as  hampered  Lowell  all  his 
life.  At  the  same  time,  his  portraits  of  contemporary 
American  writers,  in  many  cases  made  long  before  their 
best  work  was  done,  are  marked  not  only  by  a  serious 


James  Russell  Lowell  321 

critical  spirit,  but  by  acute  good  sense  and  surprising 
felicity  of  idiomatic  phrase.  You  can  rarely  find  more 
suggestive  criticism  anywhere  than  what  the  Fable  for 
Critics  says  of  Emerson,  Theodore  Parker,  Bryant, 
Whittier,  Hawthorne,  Cooper,  Poe,  Longfellow,  Willis, 
Irving,  Holmes,  or  Lowell  himself.  It  is  good  criticism, 
too,  sincerely  stating  the  impression  made  on  a  singularly 
alert  contemporary  mind  by  writers  who  have  now 
acquired  what  they  did  not  then  surely  possess,  a  fair 
prospect  of  permanence;  and  the  very  fantastic  oddity 
of  its  style,  which  makes  prolonged  sessions  with  it 
tiresome,  has  a  touch  not  only  of  native  Yankee  temper 
but  of  incontestable  individuality.  At  last  permitting 
himself  the  full  license  of  extravagant,  paradoxical  form, 
Lowell  revealed  all  his  amateurish  faults ;  but  he  revealed 
too  all  those  peculiar  contradictory  qualities  which  made 
the  true  Lowell  a  dozen  men  at  once.  Nobody  else  could 
have  written  quite  this  thing,  and  it  was  worth  writing. 

More  worth  writing  still,  and  equally  characteristic, 
were  the  Bigiow  Papers,  which  were  collected  at  about  the  apers 
same  time.  They  were  written  during  the  troubles  of 
the  Mexican  War.  The  slave  States  had  plunged  the 
country  into  that  armed  aggression,  which  excited  as 
never  before  the  full  fervor  of  the  antislavery  feeling  in 
the  North.  Just  at  this  time  the  influence  of  Lowell's 
wife  made  his  antislavery  convictions  strongest.  No 
technical  form  could  seem  much  less  literary  than  that  in 
which  he  chose  to  express  his  passionate  sentiments. 
Using  the  dialect  of  his  native  Yankee  country,  and  em 
phasizing  its  oddities  of  pronunciation  by  extravagant 
misspelling,  he  produced  a  series  of  verses  which  have  an 
external  aspect  of  ephemeral  popularity.  At  first  glance, 


£22      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

the  laborious  humor  of  Parson  Wilbur's  pedantry,  and  the 
formal,  interminable  phrases  in  which  he  imbeds  it,  seem 
radically  different  from  the  lines  on  which  they  comment. 
As  you  ponder  on  them,  however,  Wilbur's  elaborately 
over-studied  prose  and  the  dialect  verse  of  Hosea  Biglow 
and  Bird-o'-Freedom  Sawin  fall  into  the  same  category. 
Both  prove  so  deliberate,  both  so  much  matters  of  detail, 
that  in  the  end  your  impression  may  well  be,  that,  taken 
all  in  all,  each  paper  is  tediously  ingenious.  No  one  num 
ber  of  the  Biglow  Papers  is  so  long  as  the  Fable  for  Critics; 
but  none  is  much  easier  to  read  through. 

In  the  Biglow  Papers,  at  the  same  time,  just  as  in  the 
Fable  for  Critics,  you  feel  constant  flashes  of  Lowell's 
rarest  power;  in  compactly  idiomatic  phrase  he  could  sum 
up  matters  on  which  you  may  endlessly  ponder  with 
constantly  fresh  delight  and  suggestion.  Take  a  familiar 
stanza  from  the  first  paper  of  all — 

"  Ez  fer  war,  I  call  it  murder, — 

There  you  hev  it  plain  an'  flat; 
I  don't  want  to  go  no  furder 

Than  my  Testyment  fer  that; 
God  hez  sed  so  plump  an'  fairly, 

It's  ez  long  ez  it  is  broad, 
An'  you've  got  to  git  up  airly 

Ef  you  want  to  take  in  God. " 

To  bring  a  phrase  like  those  last  two  lines  within  the 
range  of  decency,  requires  a  power  for  which  genius  is 
hardly  an  excessive  name.  Yet  Lowell,  spontaneously 
true  to  his  paradoxical,  whimsical  self,  has  made  what 
looks  like  comic  verse,  and  is  phrased  in  a  caricature  of 
Yankee  dialect,  a  memorable  statement  of  tremendous 
truth. 


James  Russell  Lowell  323 

What  Lowell  did  in  this  first  of  the  Biglow  Papers  he 
did  in  all  such  verse  which  he  ever  wrote.  In  1862,  he 
produced  "Mason  and  Slidell,  a  Yankee  Idyll."  This 
ends  with  some  stanzas  on  Jonathan  and  John,  of  which 
the  phrasing  is  as  final  as  anything  which  Lowell's  fan 
tastic  pen  ever  put  on  paper: 

"  The  South  says,  'Poor  folks  down!'  John, 

An'  'All  men  up  ! '  say  we, — 
White,  yaller,  black,  an'  brown,  John: 
Now  which  is  your  idee  ? 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he, '  I  guess, 
John  preaches  wal,'  sez  he  : 
'  But,  sermon  thru,  an'  come  to  du, 
Why,  there's  the  old  J.  B. 
A  crowdin'  you  an'  me ! '  ' 

Lowell  was  really  at  his  best  when  he  let  himself  be 
most  fantastic,  and  this  because  of  that  whimsical  insta 
bility  of  temper,  which  he  rarely  managed  quite  to  control. 
Beneath  his  wildest  vagaries  you  will  often  feel  deep  ear 
nestness;  but  he  lacked  the  power  generally  to  sustain 
either  mood  quite  long  enough  to  express  it  with  complete 
effect.  The  merit  of  his  verses  generally  lies  in  admirable 
single  phrases,  single  lines,  or  at  most  single  stanzas.  These 
flashing  felicities  never  have  quite  the  power  which  should 
fuse  a  whole  poem  into  congruous  unity.  Like  Lowell's 
personality,  his  most  characteristic  verse  seems  a  bewil 
dering  collection  of  disjointed  fragments,  each  admirable 
because  of  its  sincere  humanity. 

The  quality  which  so  pervades  Lowell's  poetry  equally  Prose 
pervades  his  prose  writings.     Open  these  wherever  you  Wntin?c 
will,  even  in  the  portions  which  deal  with  public  affairs, 
and  still  more  in  those  considerable  portions  which  criti- 


324      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

cise  literature,  and  you  will  anywhere  find  this  same  fan 
tastic,  boyishly  pedantic  range  of  allusion.  You  will  find, 
too,  all  sorts  of  unexpected  turns  of  phrase,  often  rushing 
into  actual  puns;  again  you  will  find  elaborate  rhetorical 
structure,  stimulated  by  those  great  draughts  of  old  Eng 
lish  prose  which  Lowell  could  quaff  with  gusto  all  his 
life.  "Literary"  you  feel  this  man  again  and  again;  but 
by  and  by  you  begin  to  feel  that,  after  all,  this  literature 
proceeds  from  an  intensely  human  being  with  a  peculiarly 
Yankee  nature.  Somewhere  about  him  there  is  always 
lurking  a  deep  seriousness  strangely  at  odds  with  his  ob 
vious  mannerisms  and  his  fantastic  oddities  of  literary 
behavior.  The  literature  he  loved  presented  itself  to  him 
as  the  lasting  impression  of  what  life  had  meant  to  men 
as  human  as  himself.  Let  us  read,  as  sympathetically  as 
we  can,  he  constantly  seems  to  urge,  the  works  of  these 
great  fellows  who  after  all  were  only  men  like  ourselves. 
You  shall  search  far  before  you  shall  find  a  more  familiar 
interpreter  of  literature  than  he.  Yet  few  were  ever  more 
sensitive  to  the  nobility  of  wisdom  and  of  beauty. 

During  Lowell's  professorship  at  Harvard  he  was  for 
some  years  editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  and  later  had  a 
share  in  editing  the  North  American  Review.  At  this 
Later  period  most  of  his  prose  was  published.  His  later  writing, 
Work.  produced  after  his  diplomatic  career  began,  was  mostly 
occasional;  but  all  along  it  tended  slowly  to  ripen.  Toward 
the  end  it  gained  at  least  in  simplicity  and  dignity;  and 
this  dignity  was  not  assumed,  but  developed.  With  his 
slowly  attained  maturity  and  with  that  knowledge  of  Euro 
pean  life  which  came  during  his  diplomatic  experience,  he 
gained  something  which  at  last  gave  his  utterances,  along 
with  their  old  earnestness  and  humanity,  a  touch  of  self- 


James  Russell  Lowell  325 

respecting  humility.  Nothing  shows  him  more  at  his  best 
than  the  short  speech  on  "  Our  Literature"  which  he  made 
in  response  to  a  toast  at  a  banquet  given  in  New  York  to 
commemorate  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  Wash 
ington's  inauguration.  The  simple  hopefulness  of  the 
closing  paragraph,  where  for  once  Lowell  was  not  afraid 
to  be  commonplace,  is  a  fit  and  admirable  conclusion  for 
the  six  volumes  of  his  collected  prose : 

"The  literature  of  a  people  should  be  the  record  of  its  joys  and 
sorrows,  its  aspirations  and  its  shortcomings,  its  wisdom  and  its  folly, 
the  confidant  of  its  soul.  We  cannot  say  that  our  own  as  yet  suffices 
us,  but  I  believe  that  he  who  stands,  a  hundred  years  hence,  where  I 
am  standing  now,  conscious  that  he  speaks  to  the  most  powerful  and 
prosperous  community  ever  devised  or  developed  by  man,  will  speak 
of  our  literature  with  the  assurance  of  one  who  beholds  what  we 
hope  for  and  aspire  after,  become  a  reality  and  a  possession 
forever." 

So  if  one  asks  where  Lowell  finally  belongs  in  the  history 
of  our  New  England  Renaissance,  the  answer  begins  to 
phrase  itself.  A  born  Yankee  and  a  natural  lover  of  letters, 
he  instinctively  turned  at  once  to  books  and  to  life  for  the 
knowledge  which  should  teach  him  what  humanity  has  Summary, 
meant  and  what  it  has  striven  for.  For  all  the  oddities  of 
temper  which  kept  him  from  popularity,  the  man  was  al 
ways  true  to  his  intensely  human  self.  In  his  nature  there 
were  constant  struggles  between  pure  taste  and  perverse 
extravagance.  As  a  man  of  letters,  consequently,  he 
was  most  himself  when  he  permitted  himself  forms  of 
expression  in  which  these  struggles  needed  no  conceal 
ment.  But  through  it  all  there  persists  just  such  whole 
some  purity  of  feeling  and  purpose  as  we  love  to  think 
characteristic  of  New  England.  Throughout,  despite 


326      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

whimsical   extravagance  of    phrase,  you  may  discern  a 
nature  at  once  manly  and  human. 
Lowell  the       "Human,"  after  all,  is  the  word  which  most  often  recurs 

Humanist.  ,    .  i  i      .,    T  11  T 

as  one  tries  to  phrase  what  Lowell  means.  In  one  sense 
the  most  truly  human  being  is  he  who  most  strives  to  un 
derstand  those  records  of  the  past  to  which  we  give  the 
name  of  the  humanities.  In  another  sense  the  most  deeply 
human  being  is  he  who  strives  most  to  understand  the 
humanity  about  him.  It  was  unceasing  effort  to  fuse  his 
understanding  of  the  humanities  with  his  understanding 
of  humanity  which  made  Lowell  so  often  seem  paradoxical. 
He  was  in  constant  doubt  as  to  which  of  these  influences 
signified  the  more;  and  this  doubt  so  hampered  his  power 
of  expression  that  the  merit  of  his  writing  lies  mostly  in 
disjointed  phrases.  At  their  best,  however,  these  phrases 
are  full  of  humanity  and  of  the  humanities  alike.  In  dis 
tinction  from  Ticknor,  the  scholar  of  our  New  England 
Renaissance,  and  from  Longfellow,  its  academic  poet, 
Lowell  defines  himself  more  and  more  clearly  as  its  earnest 
humanist. 


XIII 

OLIVER   WENDELL    HOLMES 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Riverside  Edition,  14  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1891;  Poems, 
Cambridge  Edition,  Boston:  Houghton,  1895. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  J.  T.  Morse,  Jr.,  Life  and  letters  of 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1896;  Stedman,  Poets 
of  America,  Chapter  viii. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Foley,  129-142. 

SELECTIONS:  Duyckinck,  II,  513-517;  Griswold,  Poets,  416-423; 
Hart,  Contemporaries,  IV,  No.  66;  Stedman,  153-162;  *Stedman  and 
Hutchinson,  VII,  3-37. 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES  (1809-1894)  was  born  at  Parentage. 
Cambridge,  where  his  father,  a  Connecticut  man  and  a 
graduate  of  Yale,  had  for  some  years  been  the  Calvinistic 
minister  of  the  First  Church.  Though  Harvard  College 
had  already  yielded  to  Unitarianism,  this  had  not  yet 
achieved  the  social  conquest  of  the  region.  During  Dr. 
Holmes's  boyhood  and  youth,  however,  the  struggle  grew 
fierce ;  and  at  about  the  time  of  his  graduation,  his  father, 
whose  devotion  to  the  old  creed  never  wavered,  was  for 
mally  deposed  from  the  pulpit  which,  after  nearly  forty 
years  of  occupancy,  he  stoutly  refused  to  open  to  Uni 
tarian  doctrine.  The  old  man,  than  whom  none  was  ever 
more  faithfully  courageous,  was  supported  by  a  majority  of 
the  communicants  of  the  Cambridge  church;  a  majority 
of  the  parish,  however,  preferred  the  other  side.  Ac 
cordingly,  Abiel  Holmes,  with  his  saving  remnant  of  church 
members,  was  forced  to  establish  a  new  place  of  worship. 

327 


328       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

Now  Dr.  Holmes,  in  the  matter  of  faithful  courage,  was 
his  father's  counterpart.  So,  in  comparatively  early  life, 
finding  himself  unable  to  accept  the  Calvinistic  teachings 
of  his  youth,  he  became  what  he  remained  all  his  life, — a 
stout  Unitarian. 

Dr.  Holmes's  maternal  grandfather  was  a  judge  and  a 
Fellow  of  Harvard  College.     Thus  hereditarily  allied  with 

both  pulpit  and  bar,  Holmes  was 
doubly  what  he  used  to  call  a 
New  England  Brahmin.  Like 
any  good  orthodox  boy,  he  was 
sent  to  school  at  Andover;  and 
thence,  like  any  good  Cambridge 
boy,  he  was  sent  to  Harvard. 
After  taking  his  degree  in  1829, 
he  began  the  study  of  law;  but 
finding  this  not  congenial,  he 
soon  turned  to  medicine.  In 
pursuance  of  this  study  he  went 
abroad  for  two  or  three  years, 
finally  receiving  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine  in 
1836.  After  a  year  or  two  of  practice  he  became  in 
1839  Professor  of  Anatomy  at  Dartmouth  College.  A 
year  later  he  returned  to  Boston,  where  he  remained 
for  the  rest  of  his  life;  and  from  1847  to  T^^2  ne  was  Park- 
man  Professor  of  Anatomy  in  the  Harvard  Medical  School. 
Extreme  localism  of  professional  character  and  social 
position  is  characteristic  of  Holmes  throughout  life.  After 
1840,  when  he  finally  settled  in  Boston,  he  rarely  passed 
a  consecutive  month  outside  of  Massachusetts.  Among 
Boston  careers  perhaps  the  only  other  of  eminence  which 
was  so  uninterruptedly  local  is  that  of  Cotton  Mather. 


Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 


329 


Eminence. 


The   intolerant  Calvinistic  minister  typifies  seventeenth- 
century  Boston;  the  Unitarian  physician  typifies  the  Bos 
ton  of  the  century  just  past.     To  both  alike,  Beacon  Hill  Nature  of 
instinctively  presented  itself,  in  the  phrase  which  Holmes  * 
has  made  so  familiar,  as  the  Hub  of  the  Solar  System. 

Though  throughout  Holmes's  fifty  years  of  Boston  resi 
dence  he  was  a  man  of  local  eminence,  his  eminence  was 


r 


HOLMES'S  BIRTHPLACE,  CAMBRIDGE. 

not  quite  of  a  professional  kind.  His  practice,  in  which 
he  took  no  excessive  interest,  gradually  faded  away;  and 
long  before  he  gave  up  his  lectures  on  anatomy,  they  were 
held  old-fashioned.  He  neither  neglected  nor  disliked 
his  profession,  but  it  did  not  absorb  him;  and  as  his  life 
proceeded,  he  probably  grew  less  and  less  patient  of  that 
overwhelming  mass  of  newly  discovered  detail  which  mod 
ern  physicians  must  constantly  master.  Another  reason 
why  his  medical  career  became  less  and  less  important  is 
that  from  the  beginning  he  had  a  keen  interest  in  literature 
and  was  widely  known  as  a  poet.  Now,  a  man  eminent 


330      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

in  a  learned  profession  may  certainly  be  eminent  in  letters 
too,  but  public  opinion  hates  to  have  him  so;  and  any 
youth  who  would  succeed  in  law  or  medicine  can  hear  no 
sounder  advice  than  that  which  Dr.  Holmes  often  gave 
in  his  later  years, — namely,  that  you  should  never  let 
people  suppose  you  seriously  interested  in  anything  but 
your  regular  work.*  In  the  very  year  when  Holmes 
returned  from  Europe  to  begin  practice,  he  published  a 
volume  of  poems,  and  at  least  three  subsequent  collec 
tions  appeared  .before;  with  the  beginning  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly,  he  became  known  as  a  remarkable  writer  of  prose. 
His  writings,  in  fact,  steadily  distracted  attention  from  his 
profession.  Nor  is  this  the  whole  story.  Holmes's  local 
eminence  was  perhaps  chiefly  due  to  his  social  gifts.  Early 
in  life  he  acquired  the  reputation  of  being  the  best  talker 
ever  heard  in  Boston;  and  this  he  maintained  unbroken 
to  the  very  end. 

In  his  later  life  his  conversation  and  his  wit  alike,  always 
spontaneous  and  often  of  a  quality  which  would  have  been 
excellent  anywhere,  are  said  sometimes  to  have  been 
overwhelming.  His  talk  tended  to  monologue,  and  his 
wit  to  phrases  so  final  that  nobody  could  think  of  anything 
to  say  in  return.  There  was  humorous  and  characteristic 
The  good-nature  in  that  title,  the  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast 

Autocrat,  fable,  which  he  gave,  so  early  as  1831,  to  a  couple  of  arti 
cles  written  for  the  now  forgotten  New  England  Magazine. 
Fully  twenty-five  years  elapsed  before  he  published  any 
thing  else  of  the  kind.  Then,  when  in  1857  he  began 
those  papers  under  the  same  title  which  have  become 
permanent  in  our  literature,  his  opening  phrase  is  whim 
sically  characteristic:  "I  was  going  to  say,  when  I  was 

*  Morse's  Lije,  I,  158-161. 


Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  331 

interrupted."  Whereupon,  after  twenty- five  years  of 
interruption,  he  proceeds  with  the  autocratic  utterances 
now  familiar  all  over  the  world.  The  contagious  good- 
humor  of  this  title,  like  the  whimsicality  of  that  little  ref 
erence  to  the  lapse  of  a  quarter  of  a  century,  indicates  the 


COMMENCEMENT    DAY    AT    HARVARD    IN    HOLMES'S    TIME. 
From  Josiah  Quincy's "History  of  Harvard  University." 

quality  which  made  Holmes  popular,  despite  his  habit  of 
keeping  the  floor  and  of  saying  admirably  unanswerable 
things. 

Up  to  middle  life  Dr.  Holmes's  literary  reputation  was 
that  of  a  poet  whose  work  was  chiefly  social.      Almost 
his  first  publication,  to  be  sure,  "  Old  Ironsides,"  was  "an  old 
impromptu  outburst  of  feeling,"  caused  by  a  notice  in  a  I 
newspaper  that  the  old  frigate  "Constitution"  was  to  be 
destroyed.     His  fervent  verses  not  only  achieved  their 
purpose  of  saving   from  destruction   that   historic   craft, 
whose  hulk  still  lies  at  the  Charlestown  Navy  Yard,  but 
have  retained  popularity.     Few  lines  are  more  familiar  to 
American  school-boys  than  the  opening  one: 
"Ay,  tear  her  tattered  ensign  down!" 


332      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 


Most  of  Holmes's  early  verse,  however,  may  be  typified  by 
the  first  stanza  of  "My  Aunt": 

"My  aunt!  my  dear  unmarried  aunt! 

Long  years  have  o'er  her  flown; 
Yet  still  she  strains  the  aching  clasp 
That  binds  her  virgin  zone; 

"I  know  it  hurts  her — though  she  looks 

As  cheerful  as  she  can; 
Her  waist  is  ampler  than  her  life, 
For  life  is  but  a  span. " 

Social  Such  verse  as  this,  with  its  light  good-humor  and  its  reck 
less  pun,  is  of  a  sort  which  for  want  of  a  native  English 
term  we  call  vers  de  societe. 

Of  social  verse  in  every  sense  of  the  word  Holmes  early 
showed  himself  a  master;  and  to  the  end  his  mastery 
never  relaxed.  He  wrote  verses  for  almost  every  kind  of 
occasion  which  demanded  them.  The  occasions  most 
frequent  in  their  demands,  however,  were  those  which 
occur  in  the  yearly  life  of  Harvard  College.  Holmes  was 
perhaps  the  most  completely  loyal  Harvard  man  of  his 
century.  Both  at  the  formal  ceremonies  of  the  college 
and  at  the  more  intimate  meetings  of  his  college  class 
he  was  constantly  called  on  for  poems  which  he  never 
"Songs  failed  to  give.  So  whoever  wishes  to  understand  the  tem- 
of  >29'"  per  of  Harvard  cannot  do  better  than  saturate  himself 
with  those  verses  which  Holmes  has  made  part  of  the 
college  history.  Many  of  these  recall  the  older  traditions 
of  Harvard,  none  more  jauntly  than  the  song  he  wrote  for 
the  two  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  college  in  1836: 


Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  333 

"And,  when  at  length  the  College  rose, 

The  sachem  cocked  his  eye 
At  every  tutor's  meagre  ribs 

Whose  coat-tails  whistled  by  : 
But  when  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  words 

Came  tumbling  from  his  jaws, 
The  copper-colored  children  all 

Ran  screaming  to  the  squaws. 

"And  who  was  on  the  Catalogue 

When  college  was  begun  ? 
Two  nephews  of  the  President, 

And  the  Professor's  son  ; 
(They  turned  a  little  Indian  by, 

As  brown  as  any  bun  ;) 
Lord!  how  the  seniors  knocked  about 

The  freshman  class  of  one  !" 

More  characteristic  of  his  riper  years  was  an  inimitable  combina- 
combination  of  reckless  fun  and  tender  sentiment  such  as  llon  of  . 

run  and 

makes  peculiarly  his  own  the  first  verses  of  his  poem  for  Tender- 
the  "Meeting  of  the  Alumni"  in  1857 : 

"  I  thank  you,  MR.  PRESIDENT,  you've  kindly  broke  the  ice  ; 
Virtue  should  always  be  the  first, — I'm  only  SECOND  VICE — 
(A  vice  is  something  with  a  screw  that's  made  to  hold  its  jaw 
Till  some  old  file  has  played  away  upon  an  ancient  saw). 

"  Sweet  brothers  by  the  Mother's  side,  the  babes  of  days  gone  by, 
All  nurslings  of  her  Juno  breasts  whose  milk  is  never  dry, 
We  come  again,  like  half -grown  boys,  and  gather  at  her  beck 
About  her  knees,  and  on  her  lap,  and  clinging  round  her  neck. 

"  We  find  her  at  her  stately  door,  and  in  her  ancient  chair, 
Dressed  in  the  robes  of  red  and  green  she  always  loved  to  wear. 
Her  eye  has  all  its  radiant  youth,  her  cheek  its  morning  flame  ; 
We  drop  our  roses  as  we  go,  hers  flourish  still  the  same. " 

His  class  poems,  again,  tell  of  old-fashioned  class  feeling 


334      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

as  nothing  else  can.     Here  is  a  random  verse  from  one 
that  he  made  in  1867 : 

"So  when  upon  the  fated  scroll 

The  falling  stars*  have  all  descended, 
And,  blotted  from  the  breathing  roll, 

Our  little  page  of  life  is  ended, 
We  ask  but  one  memorial  line 

Traced  on  thy  tablet,  Gracious  Mother  : 
'  My  children.     Boys  of  '29. 

In  pace.     How  they  loved  each  other  ! ' " 

And  Holmes  could  speak  for  the  new  Harvard  as  well 
as  for  the  old.  In  1886,  when  the  college  celebrated  its 
two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary,  Lowell  delivered  an 
oration  and  Holmes  a  poem.  He  was  then  an  old  man, 
addressed  to  a  task  of  solemn  dignity,  and  his  verse  lacked 
the  vivacity  which  almost  to  that  time  had  seemed  peren 
nial;  but  passages  of  it  show  him  as  sympathetic  with  the 
future  as  his  older  college  verses  show  him  with  the  past. 
Take,  for  example,  the  stirring  lines  in  which  he  sets 
forth  the  conflict  of  Harvard  with  the  ghost  of  Cal 
vinism  : 

"As  once  of  old  from  Ida's  lofty  height 
The  naming  signal  flashed  across  the  night, 
So  Harvard's  beacon  sheds  its  unspent  rays 
Till  every  watch-tower  shows  its  kindling  blaze. 
Caught  from  a  spark  and  fanned  by  every  gale, 
A  brighter  radiance  gilds  the  roofs  of  Yale; 
Amherst  and  Williams  bid  their  flambeaus  shine, 
•And  Bowdoin  answers  through  her  groves  of  pine  ; 
O'er  Princeton's  sands  the  far  reflections  steal, 
Where  mighty  Edwards  stamped  his  iron  heel; 

*  In  the  Quinquennial  Catalogue  of  Harvard,  the  names  of  the  dead 
are  designated  by  asterisks.  When  the  catalogues  were  still  phrased  in 
Latin,  the  Harvard  dead  were  described  by  the  quaintly  barbarous  term 
Stelligeri. 


Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  335 

Nay,  on  the  hill*  where  old  beliefs  were  bound 
Fast  as  if  Styx  had  girt  them  nine  times  round, 
Bursts  such  a  light  that  trembling  souls  inquire 
If  the  whole  church  of  Calvin  is  on  fire  ! 
Well  may  they  ask,  for  what  so  brightly  burns 
As  a  dry  creed  that  nothing  ever  learns  ? 
Thus  link  by  link  is  knit  the  flaming  chain 
Lit  by  the  torch  of  Harvard's  hallowed  plain. " 

In  the  form  taken  by  this  most  serious  of  his  occasional  Eight- 
poems  there  is  something  characteristic.     The  verse  groups  centur 
itself  in  memory  with  that   of  another  poem,  which  he  Manner, 
read   at  a  dinner  given  in  honor  of  Lowell's  seventieth 
birthday.     Holmes  was  ten  years  older,  and  Mr.  Sidney 
Bartlett,  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  Boston  bar,  was 
ten  years  older  still.     So  Holmes  made  some  whimsical 
allusion  to  Lowell's  youth  and  then  to  his  own  maturity; 
and  finally  spoke  of  Bartlett, 

"  The  lion  of  the  law  ; 

All  Court  Street  trembles  when  he  leaves  his  den, 
Clad  in  the  pomp  of  fourscore  years  and  ten. " 

These  lines  were  read  on  the  22d  of  February,  1889;  yet 
if  any  student  of  English  literature  should  be  given  that 
couplet  by  itself,  he  would  probably  guess  it  to  be  the  work 
of  some  contemporary  of  Alexander  Pope.  The  trait 
which  appears  here  characterizes  Holmes's  occasional 
verse  throughout.  So  able  a  critic  as  Mr.  Stedman,  indeed, 
holds  it  to  characterize  all  his  poetry.  In  many  aspects 
Holmes's  temper  was  that  of  a  bygone  time.  As  Mr. 
Stedman  happily  observes,  his  verse  is  not  a  revival  of 
eighteenth-century  literature,  but  rather  its  last  survival. 

The  more  one  considers  Holmes's  work  in  its  entirety, 

*Andover  Hill. 


336       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

the  more  significant  one  finds  this  criticism.  Revivals 
of  the  eighteenth  century — Henry  Esmond,  for  example, 
or  Mr.  Dobson's  essays — have  been  common  enough  in 
our  own  day.  Indeed  modern  artists  in  general  are  quite 
as  apt  to  express  themselves  in  the-  manner  of  some  bygone 
age  as  in  any  spontaneously  characteristic  of  their  own 
time.  Holmes,  however,  seems  as  far  from  artificial  in 
manner  as  if  he  had  flourished  at  a  time  which  had  an 
instinctively  settled  style  of  its  own.  That  his  manner 
proves  so  much  in  the  spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
accordingly,  indicates  something  characteristic  not  only  of 
the  man,  but  of  the  world  about  him.  For  full  fifty  years, 
as  we  have  seen,  he  rarely  stirred  from  New  England;  no 
other  writer  lived  under  such  completely  local  circum 
stances.  In  view  of  this  fact,  his  manner,  so  like  that 
prevalent  in  English  literature  of  a  hundred  years  before, 
seems  a  fresh  bit  of  evidence  that  the  literary  temper  of 
America  has  lagged  behind  that  of  the  mother  country. 

The  Boston  where  Holmes  lived,  however,  and  where 
for  years  he  was  so  eminent  a  social  figure,  was  the  same 
Boston  which  was  thrilling  with  all  the  fervid  vagaries  of 
our  Renaissance.  Deeply  conservative  in  external  temper, 
loving  social  order,  and  distrusting  vagaries  of  thought 
and  of  conduct  alike,  Holmes  had  small  sympathy  with 
the  extravagances  of  Transcendentalism  or  of  reform;  but 
he  could  not  have  been  truly  contemporary  with  these 
movements  without  catching  something  of  their  spirit.  So 
if  in  one  aspect  he  was  what  Mr.  Stedman  has  called  him, 
a  survivor  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in  another  he  was 
inevitably  a  Yankee  of  the  Renaissance. 

Like  the  men  about  him,  he  was  seized  with  an  impulse 
to  search  for  truth  and  to  report  it.  What  chiefly  dis- 


Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  337 

linguistics  him  from  the  rest  is  that  they  were  essentially 
romantic.  They  were  attracted  by  ideal  philosophy  and 
mediaeval  poetry.  History  they  found  most  stimulating 
and  satisfying  when  it  appealed  to  romantic  emotion. 
In  this  they  delighted  with  all  the  ardor  of  a  race  which 
for  two  hundred  years  had  been  aesthetically  starved. 
America,  however,  had  been  poor  in  another  range  of 
human  experience.  Throughout  Europe,  the  eighteenth 
century  was  a  period  of  alert  common  sense,  observing 
life  keenly,  commenting  on  it  with  astonishing  wit,  but  Ration- 
generally  regarding  romantic  emotion  with  distrust.  And  ahsm- 
New  England,  when  its  Renaissance  finally  dawned,  lacked 
not  only  the  untrammelled  romanticism  of  mediaeval 
tradition,  but  also  the  eager  rationalism  which  had  been 
the  most  characteristic  trait  of  eighteenth-century  Europe. 

This  feature  of  the  new  learning  Holmes  found  most 
congenial.  In  the  form  and  spirit  of  his  verse,  as  Mr. 
Stedman  says,  there  is  something  which  makes  him  a 
survival  of  the  eighteenth  century;  and  though  the  form 
of  his  prose  is  individual,  its  spirit  seems  as  essentially 
that  of  the  eighteenth  century  as  if  every  line  of  his  essays 
and  novels  had  been  thrown  into  heroic  couplets. 

The  first  instalment  of  his  final  Autocrat  of  the  Break 
fast  Table — revived  after  the  casual  interruption  of  twenty- 
five  years — appeared  in  the  first  number  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  in  the  autumn  of  1857.  Within  the  next  thirty 
years  Holmes  produced  four  volumes  of  such  essays  as  the 
Autocrat*  three  more  or  less  formal  novels,f  and  ex- 

*  The  Professor  at  the  Breakfast  Table,  1860;  The  Poet  at  the  Breakfast 
Table,  1872;  Pages  from  an  Old  Volume  of  Life,  1883;  Over  the  Tea 
Cups,  1891. 

f  Elsie  Venner,  1861;  The  Guardian  Angel,  1867;  A  Mortal  Antipathy, 
1885. 


The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

cellcnt  memoirs  of  Motley  (1879)  and  of  Emerson  (1885). 
Throughout  this  prose  work  of  his  maturity  and  his  age, — 
he  was  nearly  fifty  years  old  when  it  began, — one  feels  the 
shrewd,  swift,  volatile  mind  of  a  witty  man  of  the  world. 
One  feels,  too,  the  temper  of  a  trained  though  not  very 
learned  man  of  science,  whose  education  and  professional 
experience  combined  with  native  good  sense  to  make  him 
understand  the  value  of  demonstrable  fact.  One  feels  al 
most  as  surely  another  trait.  Holmes  could  not  have  been 
a  Bostonian  during  those  years  of  Renaissance  when  Bos 
ton  was  the  intellectual  centre  of  America,  without  keen 
interest  in  something  like  mysticism ;  but  beyond  any  other 
New  England  man  of  his  time  Holmes  treats  mystical 
vagaries  as  only  fancies, — beautiful,  perhaps,  and  stimulat 
ing,  but  inherently  beyond  the  range  of  assertion  as  dis 
tinguished  from  speculation.  In  one  sense  no  Transcen- 
dentalist  more  constantly  devoted  himself  to  the  task  of 
proving  all  things  and  holding  fast  those  which  were  good. 
From  beginning  to  end,  however,  Holmes  knew  that  things 
can  truly  be  proved  only  by  observation  and  experiment. 
So  just  as  in  our  final  view  of  the  New  England  Renaissance 
Ticknor  seems  its  most  eminent  scholar,  Longfellow  its 
most  congenial  poet,  and  Lowell  its  deepest  humanist, 
so  Holmes  seems  its  one  uncompromising  rationalist. 

For  this  rationalism,  in  addition  to  the  fact  that  he  was 
an  almost  lifelong  student  of  science,  Holmes  had  a  deeply 
Early          personal  reason.     His   youth    had   been   surrounded  by 
ofXCaT-enCe  tne  strictest  Calvinism,  at  a  moment  when  the  spiritual 
vinism.         thought  of  his  native  region  was  at  last  taking  its  enfran 
chised  Unitarian  form.     The  whole  austerity  of  the  old 
system,  with  its  stern  limitation  of  intellectual  and  spir 
itual  freedom,  had  been  within  his  personal  experience 


Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  339 

at  the  period  of  life  when  impressions  sink  deepest.  He 
early  developed  the  liberal  and  kindly  rationalism  so  ad 
mirably  expressed  in  his  personal  and  literary  career. 
The  dogmas  of  the  elder  creed,  however,  were  seared  into 
his  brain;  he  could  never  quite  forget  them.  And  believ 
ing  them  untrue,  he  never  ceased  his  efforts  to  refute 
them.  These  attacks  were  sometimes  indirect,  as  in  Elsie 
Venner,  or  in  many  passages  from  his  Breakfast  Table 
series.  In  his  essay  on  Edwards,  and  elsewhere,  they 
were  direct. 

So  Holmes,  the  wittiest  and  happiest  of  New  England 
social  figures,  the  most  finished  as  well  as  the  most  ten-  Summaryc 
derly  sentimental  maker  of  our  occasional  verse,  who  wrote 
so  much  even  of  his  most  serious  work  with  the  temper 
and  the  manner  of  a  wit,  proves  to  have  another  aspect. 
Among  our  men  of  letters  this  rationalist  was  the  most 
sturdy,  the  most  militant,  the  most  pitiless  enemy  of  what  he 
believed  to  be  a  superstition  whose  tyranny  over  his  child 
hood  had  left  lifelong  scars.  That  he  never  relaxed  his 
fight  shows  rare  courage.  From  beginning  to  end  Holmes 
thus  seems  a  survivor  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Brave, 
rationalistic  attack  on  outworn  superstitions  is  the  bravest 
note  of  that  past  epoch. 


XIV 

NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Riverside  Edition,  13  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1883. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  Julian  Hawthorne,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 
and  His  Wife,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1884;  *Henry  James,  Haw 
thorne,  New  York:  Harpers,  1880  (EML);  M.  Conway,  Life  of  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne,  London:  Scott,  1890  (GW);  *G.  E.  Woodberry,  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne,  Boston:  Houghton,  1902  (AML);  *L.  E.  Gates,  Studies  and 
Appreciations,  New  York:  Macmillan,  1900,  pp.  92-109. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Conway's  Hawthorne,  i-xiii  (at  end);  Foley,  117-121. 

SELECTIONS:  *Carpenter,  221-243;  Duyckinck,  II,  507-511;  Gris- 
wold,  Prose,  472-482;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VI,  177-214. 

IN  our  study  of  the  New  England  Renaissance  we  have 
glanced  at  Emerson,  whom  we  may  call  its  prophet;  at 
Whittier,  who  so  admirably  phrased  its  aspirations  for 
reform;  at  Longfellow,  its  academic  poet;  at  Lowell,  its 
humanist;  and  at  Holmes,  its  rationalist.  The  period 
produced  but  one  other  literary  figure  of  equal  eminence 
with  these, — NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE  (1804-1864),  above 
and  beyond  the  others  an  artist. 

Life.  Hawthorne  came  from  a  family  eminent  in  early  colonial 

days,  but  long  lapsed  into  obscurity.  His  father,  a  ship 
captain  of  the  period  when  New  England  commerce  was 
most  vigorous,  died  in  Guiana  when  Hawthorne  was  only 
four  years  old ;  and  the  boy,  who  had  been  born  at  Salem, 
grew  up  there  in  his  mother's  care,  singularly  solitary. 
In  1821  he  went  to  Bowdoin  College,  where  he  was  a 

340 


Nathaniel  Hawthorne  341 

classmate  of  Longfellow,  and  an  intimate  friend  of  Frank 
lin  Pierce,  afterwards  President  of  the  United  States. 

For  fourteen  years  after  his  graduation  from  Bowdoin 
Hawthorne  lived  with  his  mother  at  Salem,  so  quietly  that 
his  existence  was  hardly  known  to  the  townsfolk  of  that 
gossipy  little  Yankee  seaport.  He  spent  much  time  in 
doors,  constantly  writing,  but  neither  successful  nor  gen 
erally  recognized  as  an  author.  He  took  long  solitary 
walks,  and  his  personal  appearance  is  said  to  have  been 
romantic  and  picturesque.  In  1839  he  was  appointed  a 
clerk  in  the  Boston  Custom  House;  in  1841  the  spoils  sys 
tem  turned  him  out  of  office,  and  for  a  few  months  he  was 
at  Brook  Farm.  The  next  year  he  married,  and  from  then 
until  1846  he  lived  at  Concord,  writing  and  by  this  time  rec 
ognized  as  a  writer  of  short  stories.  From  1846  to  1849 
he  was  Surveyor  in  the  Custom  House  of  Salem.  During 
the  ensuing  four  years,  when  he  resided  at  various  places 
in  Massachusetts,  he  produced  his  three  most  character 
istic  long  books — The  Scarlet  Letter,  The  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables,  and  The  Blithedale  Romance — as  well  as  his  two 
volumes  of  mythological  stories  for  children,  The  Wonder- 
Book  and  Tanglewood  Tales.  In  1853  President  Pierce 
made  him  Consul  at  Liverpool.  He  remained  abroad 
until  1860,  passing  some  time  during  his  later  stay  there 
in  Italy.  From  this  experience  resulted  The  Marble  Faun. 
In  1860  he  came  home  and  returned  to  Concord,  where  he 
lived  thenceforth. 

Chronologically,  Hawthorne's  position  in  New  Eng- 
land  literature  seems  earlier  than  that  of  his  contempo- 
raries  at  whom  we  have  glanced.  He  was  only  a  year 
younger  than  Emerson,  he  was  three  years  older  than 
Longfellow  and  Whittier,  five  years  older  than  Holmes, 


342       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

and  fifteen  years  older  than  Lowell.  He  died  during  the 
Civil  War;  and  Emerson  and  Longfellow  survived  until 
1882,  Lowell  till  1891,  Whittier  till  1892,  and  Holmes  till 
1894.  Though  Hawthorne,  however,  was  the  first  to  die  of 
this  little  company,  he  had  been  a  fellow- writer  with  them 
during  the  thirty  years  when  the  full  literary  career  of  all 

had  declared  itself.  In  the 
time  which  followed  H  a  w  - 
thorne's  death,  the  survivors 
wrote  and  published  copiously; 
but  none  produced  anything 
which  much  altered  the  reputa 
tion  he  had  achieved  while 
Hawthorne  was  still  alive.  So 
far  as  character  goes,  in  short, 
the  literature  of  renascent  New 
England  was  virtually  complete 
in  1864. 

Under  such  circumstances 
chronology  becomes  accidental. 
The  order  in  which  to  consider 

contemporaries  is  a  question  simply  of  their  relative  char 
acter.  And  we  had  good  reason  for  reserving  Hawthorne 
till  the  last;  for  above  all  the  rest,  as  we  have  already 
remarked,  he  was  an  artist.  His  posthumously  published 
note-books*  show  him  freshly  impressed  almost  every  day 
with  some  aspect  of  life  which  aroused  in  him  concrete 
reaction.  He  actually  published  tales  enough  to  establish 
more  than  one  literary  reputation,  yet  these  note-books 

*  Passages  from  the  American  Note-Books,  1868;  Passages  from  the 
English  Note-Books,  1870;  Passages  from  the  French  and  Italian  Note- 
Books,  1871. 


Nathaniel  Hawthorne 


343 


prove  what  a  wealth  of  imaginative  impulse  he  never 
coined  into  finished  literary  form.  They  reveal,  too,  an 
other  characteristic  fact.  Though  Hawthorne  wrote  hardly 
any  verse,  he  was  a  genuine  poet.  His  only  vehicle  of 
expression  was  language,  and  to  him  language  meant  not 


AN    EARLY    HOME    OF    HAWTHORNE,    OLD    MANSE,    CONCORD. 

only  words  but  rhythm  too.  Hence,  even  in  memoranda 
which  he  never  expected  to  stray  beyond  his  note-books, 
you  feel  the  constant  touch  of  one  whose  meaning  is  so 
subtle  that  its  most  careless  expression  must  fall  into 
delicately  careful  phrasing. 

Such  a  temperament  would  inevitably  have  declared 
itself  anywhere.  Some  critics  have  accordingly  lamented 
the  accident  which  confined  Hawthorne's  experience  for 
almost  fifty  years  to  isolated,  aesthetically  starved  New 
England.  In  this  opinion  there  is  considerable  justice. 
The  extreme  localism  of  Hawthorne's  life,  until  his  ma- 


344      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

turity  was  passing  into  age,  may  very  likely  have  made 
world  literature  poorer.  The  Marble  Faun  is  our  only 
indication  of  what  he  might  have  done  if  his  sensitive 
youth  had  been  exposed  to  the  unfathomably  human  in 
fluence  of  Europe.  Yet,  whatever  our  loss,  we  can  hardly 
regret  an  accident  so  fortunate  to  the  literature  of  New 
England. 

Hawthorne,  whose  artistic  temperament  would  have 
been  remarkable  anywhere,  chanced  to  be  born  in  an 
old  Yankee  seaport,  then  just  at  its  zenith,  but  soon  to 
be  stricken  by  the  Embargo,  and  swiftly  to  be  surpassed 
by  a  more  prosperous  neighbor.  From  Salem  he  visited 
those  woods  of  Maine  which  were  still  so  primeval  as  to 
recall  the  shadowy  forests  whose  mystery  confronted  the 
immigrant  Puritans.  Then,  just  when  Transcendental 
ism  was  most  in  the  air,  he  lived  for  a  while  in  Boston, 
had  a  glimpse  of  Brook  Farm,  passed  more  than  one 
year  in  the  Old  Manse  at  Concord,  and  finally  strayed 
among  the  hills  of  Berkshire.  Until  he  set  sail  for  Eng 
land,  however,  he  had  never  known  any  earthly  region 
which  had  not  traditionally  been  dominated  by  the  spirit 
of  the  Puritans;  nor  any  which  in  his  own  time  was  not 
alive,  so  far  as  life  was  in  it,  with  the  spirit  of  the  New 
England  Renaissance. 

In  considering  this  period,  we  have  hitherto  dwelt  only 
on  its  most  obvious  aspect.  Like  any  revelation  of  new 
life,  it  seemed  to  open  the  prospect  of  an  inimitably  ex 
cellent  future.  Amid  such  buoyant  hopes  people  think 
little  of  the  past,  tending  indeed  to  regard  it  like  some  night 
of  darkness  to  which  at  last  the  dawn  has  brought  an  end. 
They  forget  the  infinite  mysteries  of  the  night,  its  terrors 
and  its  dreamy  beauties,  and  the  courage  of  those  who 


Nathaniel  Hawthorne  345 

throughout  its  tremulous  course  have  watched  and  prayed. 
So  when  the  dawn  comes  they  forget  that  the  birth  of  day 
is  the  death  of  night.     Thus  the  men  of  our  New  England 
Renaissance  forgot  that  their  new,  enfranchised  life  and  what 
literature  meant  the  final  passing  of  that  elder  New  Eng- 


land  so  hopefully  founded  by  the  Puritan  fathers.     As  our  wrote 

J  About, 

Renaissance  has  passed  its  swift  zenith,  and  begun  itself 
to  recede  into  dimming  memory,  we  can  see  more  plainly 
than  of  old  this  tragic  aspect  of  its  earthly  course.  The 
world  in  which  Hawthorne  lived  and  wrote  was  not  only  a 
world  where  new  ideals  were  springing  into  life,  it  was  a 
world,  too,  where  the  old  ideals  were  suffering  their  agony. 

Of  all  our  men  of  letters  Hawthorne  was  most  sensitive 
to  this  phase  of  the  time  when  they  flourished  together. 
He  was  not,  like  Emerson,  a  prophet  striving  to  glean  truth 
from  unexplored  fields  of  eternity;  he  was  not,  like  Whit- 
tier,  a  patient  limner  of  simple  nature,  or  a  passionate 
advocate  of  moral  reform;  he  was  not,  like  Longfellow 
or  Lowell,  a  loving  student  of  world  literature,  moved  by 
erudition  to  the  expression  of  what  meaning  he  had  found 
in  the  records  of  a  wonderful  foreign  past  ;  he  was  not,  like 
Holmes,  a  combatant  who,  with  all  the  vivacity  of  lifelong 
wit  and  all  the  method  of  scientific  training,  rationally 
attacked  the  chimeras  of  his  time;  he  was  an  artist,  who 
lived  for  nearly  fifty  years  only  in  his  native  country,  daily 
stirred  to  attempt  expression  of  what  our  Yankee  life  meant. 
Of  all  our  men  of  letters  he  was  the  most  indigenous. 

So  a  hasty  comparison  of  his  work  with  some  which  Haw- 
was  produced  in  England  during  the  same  years  may 


help  to  define  our  notion  of  what  the  peculiar  trait  of  pared  with 
American  letters  has  been.     His  first  collection  of  Twice-  nsh  c!fn- 
lold  Tales  appeared  in  1837;  in  England,  where  Queen  tfmpora' 


346       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

Victoria  had  just  come  to  the  throne,  Dickens  published 
Oliver  Twist,  and  Thackeray  The  Yellowplush  Papers. 
The  second  series  of  Twice-told  Tales  came  in  1842,  when 
Bulwer  published  Zanoni,  Dickens  his  American  Notes, 
and  Macaulay  his  Lays.  In  1846,  when  Hawthorne  pub 
lished  the  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse,  Dickens  published 
Dombey  and  Son.  In  1850,  the  year  of  The  Scarlet  Letter, 
came  Mrs.  Browning's  Sonnets  jrom  the  Portuguese,  Car- 
lyle's  Latter-day  Pamphlets,  and  Tennyson's  In  Memoriam; 
in  1851,  along  with  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  came 
Mrs.  Browning's  Casa  Guidi  Windows  and  Ruskin's 
Stones  0}  Venice;  in  1852,  with  The  Blithedale  Romance, 
came  Dickens's  Bleak  House,  Charles  Reade's  Peg 
Woffington,  and  Thackeray's  Henry  Esmond;  in  1853, 
along  with  Tanglewood  Tales,  came  Kingsley's  Hypatia, 
Bulwer's  My  Novel,  and  Miss  Yonge's  Heir  0}  Redclyffe; 
and  in  the  year  of  The  Marble  Faun  (1860)  came  Wilkie 
Collins's  The  Woman  in  White,  George  Eliot's  The  Mill 
on  the  Floss,  Charles  Reade's  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth, 
and  the  last  volume  of  Ruskin's  Modern  Painters.  The 
list  is  long  enough  for  our  purpose.  It  shows  that,  like 
Irving  and  Poe,  the  two  Americans  who  preceded  him  as 
literary  artists,  Hawthorne  proves,  the  moment  you  com 
pare  him  with  the  contemporary  writers  of  England,  to 
be  gifted  or  hampered  with  a  pervasive  sense  of  form  which 
one  is  half  disposed  to  call  classic. 

Yet  that  term  "classic,"  applied  even  to  Irving,  and  still 
more  to  Poe  or  Hawthorne,  must  seem  paradoxical.  Such 
terms  as  "romantic"  and  "classic"  are  bewildering;  but  for 
general  purposes  one  would  not  go  far  wrong  who  should 
include  under  the  term  "classic"  that  sort  of  human  im 
pulse  which  reached  its  highest  form  in  the  fine  arts  of 


Nathaniel  Hawthorne 


347 


Greece,  and  under  the  term  "romantic"  that  which  most 
nearly  approached  realization  in  the  art  and  the  literature 
of  mediaeval  Europe.  The  essence  of  classic  art  is  perhaps 
that  the  artist  realizes  the  limits  of  his  conception,  and 
within  those  limits  endeavors  to  make  his  expression  com- 


WAYSIDE,  CONCORD,  HOME   OF    NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

pletely  beautiful.  The  essence  of  the  romantic  spirit  is 
that  the  artist,  whatever  his  conception,  is  always  aware  of 
the  infinite  mysteries  which  lie  beyond  it. 

Now,  even  the  stories  of  Irving  are  pervaded  with  one 
kind  of  romantic  temper  —  that  which  delights  in  the  splen- 
dors  of  a  vanished  past,  and  in  the  mysteries  of  supernatural 

.  . 

fancy.  Something  more  deeply  romantic  underlies  the 
inarticulate  work  of  Brockden  Brown,  and  still  more  the 
poems  and  the  tales  of  Poe.  Both  Brown  and  Poe  had  a 
profound  sense  of  what  horror  may  lurk  in  the  mysteries 
which  we  call  supernatural.  Even  Brown,  however,  and 
surely  Poe,  conceived  these  melodramatically.  In  common 


The  RO- 


Early 

American 

Fiction. 


348      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

with  Irving  and  Poe,  Hawthorne  had  an  instinctive  ten 
dency  to  something  like  classic  precision  of  form.  In  com 
mon  with  them  he  possessed,  too,  a  constant  sensitiveness  to 
the  mysteries  of  romantic  sentiment;  but  the  romanticism 
of  Hawthorne  differs  from  that  of  either  Poe  or  Irving  as 
distinctly  as  it  differs  from  that  of  Brockden  Brown.  In 
Hawthorne's  there  is  no  trace  of  artificiality.  Beyond 
human  life  he  felt  not  only  the  fact  of  mystery — he  felt  the 
mysteries  which  are  truly  there. 

In  the  mere  fact  of  romantic  temper  Hawthorne  is 
broadly  American,  typically  native  to  this  new  world 
Puritan-  which  has  been  so  starved  of  antiquity.  In  the  fact  that 
Motive*  his  romantic  spirit  is  fundamentally  true  he  proves  indi- 
of  Art  vidual,  and  more  at  one  than  our  other  artists  with  the 
ancestral  spirit  of  New  England.  The  darkly  passion 
ate  idealism  of  the  Puritans  had  involved  a  tendency 
towards  conceptions  which  when  they  reached  artistic 
form  must  be  romantic.  The  phase  of  mystery  on  which 
the  grim  dogmas  of  these  past  generations  incessantly 
dwelt  lies  in  the  world-old  facts  of  evil  and  sin  and  suffer 
ing.  Now  Hawthorne  had  strayed  far  from  Puritan  dogma. 
His  nature,  however,  could  never  shake  off  the  tempera 
mental  earnestness  of  the  Puritans.  Throughout  his 
work,  he  is  most  characteristic  when  in  endlessly  varied 
form  he  expresses  that  constant,  haunting  sense  of  ances 
tral  sin  in  which  his  Puritan  forefathers  found  endless 
warrant  for  their  Calvinistic  doctrines.  With  the  Puri 
tans,  of  course,  this  sense  of  sin  was  a  conviction  of  fact; 
Hawthorne,  on  the  other  hand,  felt  it  only  as  a  matter  of 
emotional  experience.  To  him  Puritanism  was  no  longer 
a  motive  of  life;  in  final  ripeness  it  had  become  a  motive 
of  art. 


Nathaniel  Hawthorne  349 

Another  aspect  of  this  deep  sense  of  sin  and  mystery  Haw- 
shows  us  that  it  involves  morbid  development  of  conscience.  ^l 
Conscience  in  its  artistic  form  Hawthorne  displays  through-   Con- 

i  •  i  i-rr  r  scienc 

out;  and  though  artistic  conscience  be  very  different  from 
moral,  the  two  have  in  common  an  aspiration  toward 
beauty.  For  all  its  perversities  of  outward  form,  the  im 
pulse  of  the  moral  conscience  is  really  toward  beauty  of 
conduct;  artistic  conscience  is  a  persistent,  strenuous  im 
pulse  toward  beauty  of  expression.  The  literature  of  Amer 
ica  has  shown  this  latter  trait  more  frequently  than  that  of 
England;  one  feels  it  even  in  Brockden  Brown,  one  feels 
it  strongly  in  Irving  and  Poe,  one  feels  it  in  the  delicately 
sentimental  lines  of  Bryant,  and  one  feels  it  now  and 
again  through  most  of  the  expression  of  renascent  New 
England.  Whatever  American  writers  have  achieved,  they 
have  constantly  tried  to  do  their  best.  Hawthorne,  we  have 
seen,  surpassed  his  countrymen  in  the  genuineness  of  his 
artistic  impulse;  he  surpassed  them,  too,  in  the  tormenting 
insistence  of  his  artistic  conscience.  In  his  choice  of  words 
and,  above  all,  in  the  delicacy  of  his  very  subtle  rhythm, 
he  seems  never  to  have  relaxed  his  effort  to  write  as  beauti 
fully  as  he  could.  Thus  he  displays  the  ancestral  con 
science  of  New  England  in  finally  exquisite  form. 

Of  course  he  has  limits.  Comparing  his  work  with 
the  contemporary  work  of  England,  one  is  aware  of 
its  classically  careful  form,  of  its  profoundly  romantic 
sentiment,  and  of  its  admirable  artistic  conscience.  One 
grows  aware,  at  the  same  time,  of  its  unmistakable  rus 
ticity;  in  turns  of  thought  as  well  as  of  phrase  one  feels  • 
monotony,  provincialism,  a  certain  thinness.  These  lim 
its,  however,  prove,  like  his  merits,  to  be  deeply  character 
istic  of  the  New  England  which  surrounded  his  life. 


350      The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

Summary.  It  is  hard  to  sum  up  the  impression  which  such  a  writer 
makes.  He  was  ideal,  of  course,  in  temper;  he  was  intro 
spective,  with  all  the  self-searching  instinct  of  his  ancestry; 
he  was  solitary;  he  was  permeated  with  a  sense  of 
the  mysteries  of  life  and  sin;  and  by  pondering  over 
them  he  tended  to  exaggerate  them  more  and  more.  In 
a  dozen  aspects  he  seems  typically  Puritan.  His  artis 
tic  conscience,  however,  as  alert  as  that  of  any  pagan, 
impelled  him  constantly  to  realize  in  his  work  those  forms 
which  should  most  beautifully  embody  the  ideals  of  his 
incessantly  creative  imagination.  Thus  he  grew  to  be  of 
all  our  writers  the  least  imitative,  the  most  surely  individ 
ual.  The  circumstances  of  his  life  combined  with  the 
sensitiveness  of  his  nature  to  make  his  individuality  in 
digenous.  Beyond  any  one  else  he  expresses  the  deep 
est  temper  of  that  New  England  race  which  brought  him 
forth,  and  which  now,  at  least  in  the  phases  we  have 
known,  seems  vanishing  from  the  earth. 

When  we  ask  what  that  race  has  contributed  to  human 
expression,  we  must  not  let  our  patriotism  betray  our  judg 
ment.  The  literature  of  New  England  is  not  supremely 
great.  Of  the  men  we  have  scrutinized  Emerson  and 
Hawthorne  seem  the  most  memorable.  And  Emerson 
has  vagaries  which  may  well  justify  a  doubt  whether  his 
work  is  among  those  few  final  records  of  human  wisdom 
which  are  imperishable  Scriptures.  And,  though  Haw 
thorne's  tales  possess  sincerity  of  motive  and  beauty  of 
form,  they  reveal  at  best  a  phase  of  human  nature  whose 
limits  are  obvious.  As  we  look  back  at  the  New  England 
now  fading  into  the  past,  however,  we  find  in  it,  if  not 
positive  magnitude  of  achievement,  at  least  qualities  which 
go  far  to  warrant  the  national  pride  in  its  utterances  which 


Nathaniel  Hawthorne  351 

we  have  loved  to  believe  justified.  For  throughout,  its 
literature  is  sincere  and  pure  and  sweet. 

The  emigrants  to  New  England  were  native  Elizabeth 
ans, — stern  and  peculiar,  but  still  temperamentally  con 
temporary  with  Shakspere  and  the  rest.  In  two  centuries 
and  a  half,  national  experience  forced  English  life  and 
letters  through  many  various  phases,  until  at  last  the  old 
country  began  to  breed  that  fixed,  conservative  John  Bull 
who  has  so  lost  Elizabethan  spontaneity,  versatility,  and 
enthusiasm.  In  America,  meantime,  national  inexperi 
ence  kept  the  elder  temper  little  changed  until  at  the  be 
ginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  was  aroused  by 
the  world-movement  of  revolution.  Then,  at  last,  our 
ancestral  America,  which  had  so  unwittingly  lingered  be 
hind  the  mother  country,  awoke.  In  the  flush  of  its  waking, 
it  strove  to  express  the  meaning  of  life;  and  the  meaning 
of  its  life  was  the  story  of  what  two  hundred  years  of  na 
tional  inexperience  had  wrought  for  a  race  of  Elizabethan 
Puritans.  Its  utterances  may  well  prove  lacking  in  scope, 
in  greatness;  the  days  to  come  may  well  prove  them  of 
little  lasting  power;  but  nothing  can  obscure  their  beautiful 
purity  of  spirit. 

For  all  its  inexperience,  New  England  life  has  been 
human.  Its  literal  records  are  no  more  free  than  those  of 
other  regions  and  times  from  the  greed  and  the  lust,  the 
trickery  and  the  squalor,  which  everywhere  defile  earthly 
existence.  What  marks  it  apart  is  the  childlike  persist 
ency  of  its  ideals.  Its  nobler  minds,  who  have  left  their 
records  in  its  literature,  retained  something  of  the  old  spon 
taneity,  the  old  versatility,  the  old  enthusiasm  of  ancestral 
England.  They  retained,  too,  even  more  than  they  knew 
of  that  ardor  for  absolute  truth  which  animated  the  grave 


352       The  Renaissance  of  New  England 

fathers  of  the  emigration.  Their  innocence  of  worldly 
wisdom  led  them  to  undue  confidence  in  the  excellence 
of  human  nature;  the  simplicity  of  their  national  past 
blinded  them  to  the  complexity  of  the  days  even  now  at 
hand,  while  the  sod  still  lies  light  on  their  graves.  We 
used  to  believe  them  heralds  of  the  future;  already  we 
begin  to  perceive  that  they  were  rather  chroniclers  of  times 
which  shall  be  no  more.  Yet,  whatever  comes,  they  pos 
sessed  traits  for  which  we  may  always  give  them  unstinted 
reverence;  for  humanity  must  always  find  inspiring  the 
record  of  bravely  confident  aspiration  toward  righteous 
ness. 


BOOK    VI 
THE    REST    OF    THE    STORY 


BOOK   VI 
THE    REST    OF    THE    STORY 


NEW  YORK  SINCE  1857 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Bayard  Taylor's  Life  and  Poetical  Works,  6  vols.,  Boston: 
Houghton;  Travels,  n  vols.,  New  York:  Putnam,  1850-1889; 
Novels,  5  vols.,  New  York:  Putnam,  1862-1872.  George  William 
Curtis's  works  are  published  by  the  Harpers;  his  speeches  (3  vols.,  New 
York:  Harpers,  1894)  have  been  edited  by  Charles  Eliot  Norton.  The 
works  of  contemporary  New  York  authors,  not  yet  collected,  are  in  print 
and  readily  accessible. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  Bayard  Taylor's  Life  and  Letters,  ed.  Marie 
Hansen-Taylor  and  H.  E.  Scudder,  2  vols.,  Boston:  Houghton,  1884; 
A.  H.  Smyth,  Bayard  Taylor,  Boston:  Houghton,  1896  (AML);  Ed 
ward  Cary,  George  William  Curtis,  Boston:  Houghton,  1894  (AML); 
Mrs.  James  T.  Fields,  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  New  York:  McClure, 
Phillips  &  Co.,  1904.  For  biographies  of  other  New  York  writers,  see 
the  various  dictionaries  of  American  biography.  For  reviews  and  criti 
cisms,  see  Poole's  Index.  For  lists  of  titles  and  dates,  see  Whitcomb 
or  Foley. 

LONG  as  we  have  dwelt  on  the  Renaissance  of  New 
England,  we  can  hardly  have  forgotten  that  the  first  con 
siderable  American  literary  expression  developed  in  the 
Middle  States.  To  that  region  we  must  now  turn  again. 
The  Atlantic  Monthly,  we  remember,  was  started  in  1857. 
That  same  year  saw  also  the  foundation  of  Harper's  Weekly 
in  New  York.  At  that  time  Harper's  New  Monthly  Mag- 

355 


356  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

azine  had  been  in  existence  for  seven  years;  and  the  two 
New  York  newspapers  which  have  maintained  closest 
relation  with  literary  matters,  the  Evening  Post  and  the 
Tribune,  had  long  been  thoroughly  established.  The  other 
periodicals  which  now  mark  New  York  as  the  literary  cen 
tre  of  the  United  States  were  not  yet  founded.  So  in 
turning  to  New  York  once  more  we  may  conveniently 
revert  to  1857. 

That  year  was  marked  throughout  America  by  financial 
panic.  The  great  expansion  of  the  country  had  resulted 
in  a  general  extension  of  credit  and  in  a  general  overde 
velopment  of  enterprises,  particularly  of  railroads,  which 
was  bound  to  involve  reaction.  For  a  little  while  material 
progress  came  to  a  standstill.  It  was  only  when  material 
commer-  progress  was  renewed,  partly  under  the  stimulus  of  the 
portance  Civil  War,  that  the  overwhelming  superiority  of  New 
York  as  a  centre  of  material  prosperity  made  itself  finally 
felt. 

Yet,  throughout  the  century,  the  preponderance  of  New 
York  had  been  declaring  itself.  In  1800  it  had  60,000  in 
habitants  to  only  24,000  in  Boston.  In  1830,  when  it  had 
200,000  inhabitants,  Boston  had  only  61,000;  and  by 
1857  the  population  of  New  York  was  at  least  three-quar 
ters  of  a  million,  while  that  of  Boston  still  proportionally 
lagged  behind.  From  the  time  when  the  Erie  Canal  was 
opened,  in  fact,  the  geographical  position  of  New  York 
had  already  made  that  city  by  far  the  most  considerable 
in  America.  Less  than  three  hundred  miles  from  Boston, 
it  was  and  it  remains  as  central  as  Boston  is  isolated. 

New  York,  however,  has  never  been  a  political 
capital.  In  this  respect  its  contrast  with  Boston  is  most 
marked.  Though  Boston  has  been  the  capital  only  of 


New  York  Since  1857  357 

the  small  State  of  Massachusetts,  this  small  State  has 
always  been  the  most  important  of  isolated  New  England. 
Boston  has  accordingly  enjoyed  not  only  the  commercial 
and  economic  supremacy  of  the  region,  but  also  such  su 
premacy  as  comes  from  attracting  and  diffusing  the  most 
important  influences  of  local  public  life.  In  this  aspect 
Boston  on  a  small  scale  resembles  the  great  capitals  of  the 
world.  New  York,  on  the  other  hand,  commercially  and 
financially  the  most  important  spot  in  America,  has  never 
been  much  else.  It  has  always  had  to  seek  legislation 
from  a  much  smaller  city  more  than  a  hundred  miles  away; 
and  thither  it  has  always  had  to  take  for  decision  every 
question  carried  to  its  court  of  highest  appeal.  Two 
natural  results  have  followed.  In  the  absence  of  far- 
reaching  political  activity,  emphasis  on  merely  local  poli 
tics  has  been  disproportionate;  and  meanwhile  the  city,  Material 
which  has  prospered  only  from  such  preponderatingly  Character- 
material  causes,  has  appeared  excessively  material  in 
general  character. 

New  York  has  consequently  lacked,  and  perhaps  must 
always  lack,  some  of  those  advantages  which  make  a  true 
capital  intellectually  stimulating.  Its  extraordinary  growth 
has  nevertheless  brought  into  being  there  something  more 
like  metropolitan  life  than  has  yet  existed  elsewhere  in 
America.  Material  development  on  so  vast  a  scale  cannot 
help  involving  intellectual  activity.  New  York  has  ac 
cordingly  developed  not  only  material  prosperity,  but  also 
higher  life.  From  the  moment  when  the  Renaissance  of 
New  England  began  to  decline,  New  York  has  more  and 
more  certainly  been  asserting  itself  as  the  intellectual  and 
artistic  centre  of  America. 

For  many  years  our  principal  publishers  have  been 


358  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

centred  there;  so  have  the  periodicals  which  are  most 
generally  read  throughout  the  country.  Putnam's  Monthly 
Magazine,  begun  in  1853,  is  now  no  more;  but  during  its 
memorable  existence  it  counted  among  its  contributors  the 
chief  American  writers  of  its  time.  Harper's  Magazine, 
which  dates  from  1850,  is  still  full  of  life;  and  so  are 
Harper's  Weekly,  which  dates  from  1857;  and  the  Cen 
tury  Magazine,  founded  as  Scribner's  Monthly  in  1870, 
Periodicals,  and  translated  to  its  present  name  in  1881;  zndScribner's 
Magazine,  founded  in  1887;  and  more.  Some  twenty 
years  ago  the  old  North  American  Review  was  bought  by 
New  York  people  and  its  title  transferred  there  to  a  monthly 
periodical  of  less  severe  character  than  the  old  quarterly 
so  dear  to  New  England  tradition.  In  New  York  are 
published  the  chief  American  weekly  papers  which  seri 
ously  discuss  public  and  literary  affairs,  The  Nation  and 
The  Outlook;  and  there  are  comic  weeklies  as  well,— Puck 
and  Life,  and  more.  The  list  might  go  on  endlessly;  but 
for  our  purposes  this  is  enough.  The  literary  activity  in 
volved  in  such  production  is  incalculably  greater  than 
New  England  ever  dreamed  of. 

All  the  same,  this  activity  has  been  distinguished  from 
the  literary  activity  of  renascent  New  England  in  two  rather 
marked  ways.  The  first  is  that,  in  spite  of  its  magnitude, 
it  is  less  conspicuous  in  New  York  than  the  old  North 
American  Review  or  even  the  Dial,  and  still  more  than  the 
earlier  volumes  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  were  in  their  con 
temporary  Boston.  As  one  looks  back  at  Boston  between 
1800  and  1864,  one  inclines  to  feel  that  its  intellectual 
life  was  rather  more  important  than  its  material,  and  that 
even  on  the  spot  this  intellectual  importance  was  appreci 
ated.  In  New  York,  however  important  our  contemporary 


New  York  Since  1857  359 

literary  expression,  material  activity  is  more  important 
still.  The  second  way  in  which  literary  New  York  may 
be  distinguished  from  our  elder  literary  Boston  is  that  con 
temporary  letters  in  New  York  have  become  oddly  im 
personal.  You  know  the  names  of  publishers,  you  know 
the  names  of  magazines,  but  in  general  you  have  rather 
vague  notions  of  who  is  writing. 

Among  those  who  have  most  influenced  literary  activity  Greeiey, 
under  these  circumstances  was  a  man  who  himself  was 
not  precisely  a  man  of  letters.  HORACE  GREELEY  (1811- 
1872)  came  to  New  York  as  a  poor  country  boy  in  1831; 
by  1841  he  had  established  the  Tribune  and  become  its 
editor.  He  is  best  remembered  in  his  later  years  when 
the  Tribune  was  politically  an  uncompromising  advocate 
of  reform.  After  the  triumph  of  antislavery,  Greeiey 
finally  turned  his  wrath  against  the  corrupt  politics  in  the 
Republican  party,  a  party  of  which  he  had  previously 
been  a  fervent,  if  candid,  friend.  His  public  career 
closed  with  his  unsuccessful  candidacy  for  the  Presidency 
against  Grant  in  1872.  His  actual  books  are  miscellaneous : 
The  American  Conflict,  1864-66;  Recollections  of  a  Busy 
Lije,  1868;  What  I  know  of  Farming,  1871.  The  most 
definitely  remembered  of  his  utterances  is  his  frequent 
advice  to  youth  who  sought  success:  "Go  West,  young 
man;  go  West."  This  pronounced,  eccentric  temper, 
which  somewhat  grotesquely  combined  simplicity  and 
shrewdness,  seems  remote  from  literature.  But,  all  the 
while  that  the  Tribune  politically  expounded  extreme 
reform,  it  remained,  in  its  relation  to  literary  criticism, 
vigorously  orthodox. 

Greeiey  naturally  sympathized  with  many  of  the  New 
England  men  at  whom  we  have  glanced.     At  one  time  or 


360  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

another  he  invited  their  co-operation  with  the  Tribune 
and  thus  helped  to  bring  to  New  York  a  number  of  mem 
orable  literary  people.  Charles  Anderson  Dana  was  long 
on  the  staff  of  the  Tribune,  and  so  was  George  William 
Curtis.  For  a  year  or  two  Margaret  Fuller  was  in  charge 
of  the  Tribune's  literary  criticism;  she  was  followed  by 
George  Ripley,  who  continued  the  work  all  his  life.  Nor 
did  the  Tribune  draw  its  literary  strength  only  from  New 
England.  The  list  of  familiar  names,  by  no  means  limited 
to  those  of  New  England  origin,  might  extend  indefinitely. 
However  long  or  short,  it  would  certainly  include  the 
name  of  Bayard  Taylor,  whose  career  fairly  represents  the 
condition  of  New  York  letters  during  the  period  imme 
diately  following  the  Knickerbocker  School. 

BAYARD  TAYLOR  (1825-1878)  was  a  Pennsylvanian, 
born  of  Quaker  parentage.  He  had  only  a  common- 
school  education,  but  he  loved  literature,  and  by  the  time 
he  was  sixteen  years  old  he  was  publishing  poems  in  local 
newspapers.  At  nineteen  he  had  attracted  the  attention  of 
men  of  letters  and  had  been  associated  with  Greeley  in  one 
of  the  journalistic  ventures  which  preceded  the  Tribune. 
So  in  1844  Taylor  brought  out  a  volume  of  poems;  and 
in  the  same  year  he  was  commissioned  by  the  Tribune  to 
go  abroad  and  write  home  letters  of  travel.  He  spent  two 
years  in  strolling  through  Europe  on  foot.  The  records 
of  this  journey  began  those  books  of  travel  which  he  con 
tinued  publishing  for  thirty  years.  Meanwhile  he  gave 
lectures,  wrote  for  the  Tribune,  and  brought  out  many 
volumes  of  poems  and  novels;  and  in  1871  he  published 
a  translation  of  Goethe's  Faust  in  the  original  metres. 
An  elaborate  life  of  Goethe,  which  he  had  planned, 
was  fatally  prevented.  Appointed  Minister  to  Germany 


New  York  Since  1857  361 

by  President  Hayes,  he  died  soon  after  his  arrival  at  Ber 
lin. 

Taylor's  most  meritorious  work  is  his  translation  of 
Faust.  He  put  before  himself  the  task  of  reproducing  the 
original  metres,  and  so  far  as  possible  the  original  rhymes, 
of  that  extremely  complex  poem.  The  result  in  nowise  re 
sembles  normal  English;  but  he  never  undertook  to  turn 
Faust  into  an  English  poem ;  his  object  was  rather  to  re 
produce  in  English  words  the  effect  made  upon  his  mind 
by  prolonged,  sympathetic,  enthusiastic  study  of  the  Ger 
man  masterpiece.  Whatever  the  positive  value  of  his 
translation,  he  achieved  the  rare  practical  result  of  indicat 
ing  the  power  and  beauty  of  Goethe's  style,  as  well  as  of 
his  meaning.  So  if  in  years  to  come  Taylor's  memory 
survives  it  will  probably  be  for  this  achievement  in  which 
he  made  no  attempt  at  originality. 

It  is  hardly  an  accident  that  the  man  of  letters  who, 
since  Taylor's  time,  has  been  the  most  eminent  in  New 
York,  should  also  have  done  much  of  his  journalistic 
work  in  connection  with  the  Tribune.  EDMUND  CLAR-  stedman. 
ENCE  STEDMAN  (1833-),  born  at  Hartford,  Connecticut, 
went  for  a  while  to  Yale,  later  became  a  journalist,  and  still 
later  a  broker,  in  New  York.  His  publications  include 
a  wide  variety  of  admirable  poems,  finally  collected  in 
1897;  two  masterly  anthologies — the  Victorian,  published 
in  1895,  and  the  American,  published  in  1900;  critical 
works  which  have  done  more  than  those  of  any  other 
living  American  to  stimulate  appreciative  delight  in 
poetry;  and  that  Library  of  American  Literature  which 
must  long  remain  the  standard  book  of  reference  for  all 
students  of  the  subject. 

Considerable  as  this  literary  work  must  always  seem, 


362  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

however,  it  is  by  no  means  the  sum  of  Mr.  Stedman's  ser 
vice  to  literature  in  America  during  the  past  thirty  years. 
Few  men  have  ever  enjoyed  a  temperament  more  gen 
uinely  and  widely  friendly.  On  the  one  hand,  he  has 
been  the  constant  and  helpful  friend  of  almost  every  one 
who  has  achieved  literary  recognition.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  has  been  to  unobtrusive  aspirants  for  such  recognition, 
a  patient  and  affectionate  counsellor.  His  eager  com 
mendation  of  all  that  is  good,  his  gentle  correction  of 
error,  and  his  sturdy  impatience  of  folly  will  make  him,  in 
the  memory  of  all  who  have  had  the  happiness  to  know 
him,  the  embodiment  of  stimulating  literary  friendship. 

It  would  be  pleasant  to  dwell  longer  here.  But  we  must 
return  to  the  Tribune,  from  which,  in  a  measure,  Stedman 
started.  From  the  Tribune  there  also  started  the  virtual 
c.A.Dana.  founders  of  two  other  conspicuous  journals.  CHARLES 
ANDERSON  DANA  (1819-1897),  one  of  the  original  Brook 
Farmers,  joined  the  Tribune  in  1847,  resigned  in  1862  to 
become  Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  and  in  1868  assumed 
the  direction  of  the  Sun.  From  this  time  until  his  death, 
Dana's  position  was  one  of  great  power.  But  the  reckless 
personality  of  his  journalistic  methods — in  startling  con 
trast  with  the  gentle  idealism  of  his  earlier  life — isolated 
him  from  many  old  friends.  To  one  ideal  he  remained 
constant.  The  Sun  was  always  admirably  written.  Be 
sides  his  journalistic  work,  Dana  wrote  a  life  of  Grant 
and  two  volumes  of  recollections  of  the  Civil  War.  Con 
cerning  HENRY  JARVIS  RAYMOND  (1820-1869)  ^  is  suf- 
ficient  to  remember  that,  after  assisting  Greeley  on  the 
Tribune,  he  established  the  Times  in  1851,  and  conducted 
it  with  marked  ability  as  long  as  he  lived. 

A  third  journalist  on  whom  any  such  consideration  as 


New  York  Since  1857  363 

ours  must  touch  was  of  different  origin.  EDWIN  LAW 
RENCE  GODKIN  (1831-1900)  was  born  in  Ireland,  grad-  Godkin 
uated  from  Queen's  College,  Belfast,  and  studied  law  at 
the  Middle  Temple,  London.  He  travelled  in  the  United 
States  in  1856,  was  admitted  to  the  New  York  bar  in  1858, 
and  was  correspondent  for  a  London  newspaper  during 
the  Civil  War.  In  1865  he  became  editor  of  the  Nation; 
in  1866,  its  proprietor.  His  editorial  work  here,  and  his 
separately  published  studies  of  American  government, — 
Problems  of  Modern  Democracy,  1896;  and  Unforeseen 
Tendencies  of  Democracy,  1898, — show  great  wisdom  and 
remarkable  mastery  of  style  and  structure.  By  birth, 
however,  Godkin  was  not  American,  but  Irish.  And, 
for  all  the  excellence  of  his  intentions,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  he  ever  quite  understood  the  real  temper  of  that 
democracy  which  he  strove  so  earnestly  to  chasten. 

To  return  once  more  to  the  Tribune,  it  was  through  this 
paper  that  some  of  the  chief  magazine  writers  of  New 
York  made  their  beginning.  None  of  them  has  been  more 
influential  than  GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS  (1824-1892).  Curtis. 
After  Brook  Farm  and  some  foreign  travel,  Curtis  settled  in 
New  York,  where  he  wrote  for  the  Tribune,  edited  Put 
nam' 's  Magazine, and  finally, in  i853,took  the  "Easy  Chair" 
of  Harper's  Monthly,  for  which  he  thereafter  wrote  con 
stantly  until  his  death.  His  published  works  include 
three  volumes  of  essays  From  the  Easy  Chair  (1892,  1893, 
1894),  some  less  important  novels  and  books  of  travel, 
and  three  large  volumes  of  speeches.  Speeches  and  essays 
alike  show  Curtis  to  have  been  equally  graceful  and  earnest 
in  advocating  social  and  political  reforms.  Of  all  the 
New  England  reformers,  he  was  perhaps  the  least 
distorted.  He  ripened  to  the  end;  he  never  really  changed. 


364 

The  "Easy  Chair"  of  Harper's  Monthly,  left  vacant  by 
the  death  of  Curtis,  was  next  occupied  by  CHARLES  DUD- 

Wamer.  LEY  WARNER  (1829-1900),  who,  in  addition  to  these  edi 
torial  essays,  wrote  some  charming  sketches  of  out-door 
life,  volumes  of  travel,  an  excellent  biography  of  Wash 
ington  Irving,  and  several  novels.  Neither  Warner's  re 
serve  nor  his  preoccupation  with  social  problems  blunted 
his  humor  or  spoiled  his  simplicity  of  heart;  but  he 
never  achieved  a  masterpiece. 

Another  New  York  editor  of  importance  was  Dr.  JOSIAH 

Holland.  GILBERT  HOLLAND  (1819-1888).  He  was  born  in  western 
Massachusetts.  He  took  his  medical  degree  at  a  small 
college  in  Pittsfield;  he  was  a  contributor  to  the  Knick 
erbocker;  he  was  for  a  time  Superintendent  of  Pub 
lic  Schools  in  Missouri;  and  in  1849  he  became  editor 
of  the  Springfield  Republican.  With  this  paper  he  re 
tained  his  connection  for  seventeen  years,  at  the  end  of 
which,  partly  through  his  shrewd  agency,  the  Springfield 
Republican  had  become  widely  influential.  In  1870 
he  became  editor  of .  Scribner's  Monthly,  which  later 
took  the  name  of  the  Century  and  of  which  he  remained 
in  charge  until  his  death.  Dr.  Holland  was  not  only  a 
respectable  and  successful  journalist,  but  a  welcome  lec 
turer  on  various  social  topics,  and  the  writer  of  numerous 
books.  Among  these  were  a  popular  Life  of  Lincoln 
(1865);  three  or  four  novels  which  had  considerable 
success,  and  some  poems  which  appealed  to  a  large, 
uncritical  public.  His  most  characteristic  writings,  how 
ever,  were  didactic  essays,  the  most  successful  of  which 
were  the  series  entitled  Timothy  TitcomVs  Letters  to 
Young  People  (1858).  Dr.  Holland's  work  is  saved  from 
indignity  by  its  apparent  unconsciousness  of  limitation. 


New  York  Since  1857  365 

His  honesty,  his  kindness,  and  his  sound  moral  sense 
endeared  him  to  every-day  people,  and  did  much  to 
strengthen  homely  ideals. 

Dr.  Holland's  successor  as  editor  of  the  Century  oudcr. 
was  RICHARD  WATSON  GILDER  (1844-).  Besides  con 
trolling  the  Century  with  marked  skill,  Mr.  Gilder  has 
found  time  to  publish  several  volumes  of  very  carefully 
finished  verses  and  to  interest  himself  in  various  causes 
of  reform.  Among  the  men  of  letters  still  flourishing  in 
New  York,  his  eminence  both  as  an  editor  and  as  a  poet 
combine  with  his  graceful  culture  to  make  him  an  admira 
ble  exponent  of  sound  literary  tradition. 

The  great  mass  of  material  which  has  appeared  during 
the  last  forty  years  in  the  magazines  thus  ably  edited,  has 
not  infrequently  included  serious  essays  and  popular  ex 
positions  of  technical   scholarship.     One  or  two  writers  Schoiar- 
of  such  matter  must  serve  us  for  examples  of  a  numerous  shlp' 
and  respectable  group. 

RICHARD  GRANT  WHITE  (1821-1885),  after  trying  other  white, 
occupations,  settled  down,  before  he  was  twenty-five 
years  old,  as  a  professional  critic.  With  no  very  special 
training,  he  produced  an  edition  of  Shakspere,  and  two 
or  three  books  on  the  English  language.  He  had 
a  fondness  meanwhile  for  anonymous  writing;  so  for 
some  time  he  was  not  recognized  as  the  author  of  the  New 
Gospel  0}  Peace  (1863-66).  In  burlesque  scriptural  style, 
it  attacked  the  so-called  "Copperheads,"  who  denied  the 
constitutional  right  of  the  Federal  Government  to  main 
tain  the  Union  by  force.  Thus  a  clever  and  versatile 
critical  journalist,  who  sincerely  and  ardently  assumed 
the  authority  of  a  serious  scholar,  came  nearest  to 
success  in  an  irreverent  political  satire. 


366  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

To  come  to  living  men,  BRANDER  MATTHEWS  (1852-) 

Matthews,  was  born  in  New  Orleans,  Louisiana.  He  graduated 
from  Columbia  University,  where  he  is  now  Professor 
of  Dramatic  Literature.  He  has  published,  in  addition 
to  short  stories  in  magazines,  some  excellent  books  on  the 

Wood-  novel  and  on  the  drama.  GEORGE  EDWARD  WOODBERRY 
(1855-),  a  native  of  Massachusetts,  and  a  graduate  of 
Harvard,  was  for  many  years  a  professor  at  Columbia. 
During  all  this  time  he  has  been  constantly  engaged  in 
serious  literary  work.  He  has  won  acknowledged  dis 
tinction  as  a  teacher,  a  critic,  and  a  poet;  and  his 
biographies  of  Poe  and  of  Hawthorne  are  the  best 
we  have. 

Nor  has  scholarship  in  New  York  confined  itself  to  lit 
erary    matters.      To    go  no   further,  New  York  is    the 

Mahan.  home  of  Captain  ALFRED  THAYER  MAHAN  (1840-),  whose 
works  on  naval  history  are  recognized  as  authoritative 
everywhere. 

Fiction.  Our  present  concern,  however,  is  chiefly  with  litera 

ture,  as  distinguished  from  history  or  other  scholarship. 
To  return  to  recent  magazines,  the  most  popular  part 
of  their  contents  has  consisted  not  of  essays  or  severer 
studies,  but  of  fiction  in  the  form  of  short  stories  or  serial 
novels.  The  writers  of  this  fiction  are  so  numerous  and 
so  even  in  merit  that  a  few  names  must  serve  here  to  rep 
resent  many.  Two  delightful  writers  of  this  group  are 

Bunner.          no     more.      HENRY     CUYLER     BUNNER     (1855-1896),    for 

years  editor  of  Puck,  was  so  busy  a  journalist  that  only 
persistent  efforts  gave  him  time  for  any  but  his  regular 
work.  The  verses  and  stories  which  he  left  are  therefore 
only  a  tantalizing  token  of  what  might  have  been  had 
he  had  more  leisure,  or  had  he  been  spared  beyond 


New  York  Since  1857  367 

early  middle  life.  His  apparently  ephemeral  work,  how 
ever,  is  memorably  sympathetic,  sensitive,  and  winning. 
FRANK  RICHARD  STOCKTON  (1834-1903),  among  whose  Stockton, 
many  stories  are  Rudder  Grange  (1879)  an<^  The  Lady  or 
the  Tiger  (1884),  was  notable  for  his  calmly  ingenious  man 
agement  of  fantastically  impossible  plots  and  situations. 
And  we  might  easily  recall  other  pleasant  writers  pre 
maturely  gone. 

Among  those  still  living  are  many  on  whom  we  might 
linger.  But  we  can  glance  now  at  only  two  or  three. 
Mrs.  FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT  (1849-),  f°r  example,  Mrs.  Bur- 
whose  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy  (1886)  had  international 
success,  set  fashions  in  children's  clothes,  and  almost 
added  a  new  figure  to  literary  tradition,  is  a  remarkably 
skilful  writer  of  readable  narrative.  RICHARD  HARDING 
DAVIS  (1864-),  author  of  books  of  travel,  short  stories  of  Davis. 
New  York  life,  and  some  successful  novels,  combines  the 
instinctive  insight  of  a  born  journalist  with  the  practical 
skill  of  an  invariably  readable  writer  of  fiction.  And  of  all 
the  novelists  who  have  lately  appeared  in  New  York,  Mrs. 
EDITH  WHARTON  (1862-)  is  the  most  remarkable.  For  Mrs. 
some  time  she  was  known  only  as  an  occasional  writer  of 
exquisitely  finished  verse,  and  of  stories  in  which  a  power 
of  analysis  similar  to  that  of  Henry  James  was  combined 
with  almost  Gallic  precision  of  effect.  In  1902  appeared 
her  only  long  novel,  The  Valley  of  Decision.  This  re 
markable  study  of  Italian  life  during  the  last  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century  is  among  the  few  books  which  seem 
better  each  time  you  open  it.  Nothing  written  in  America 
shows  more  vivid  power  of  imagination,  more  firm  grasp 
of  subject,  more  punctilious  mastery  of  style,  or  more 
admirably  pervasive  artistic  conscience. 


368  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

We  must  hasten  on.  We  have  glanced  at  two  of  the 
forms  which  seem  growing  to  literary  ripeness  in  New 
York — the  newspaper  and  the  popular  magazine.  There  is 
only  one  other  form  whose  present  popularity  in  America  is 
anything  like  so  considerable ;  this  is  the  stage.  So  far,  to 
be  sure,  the  American  theatre  has  produced  no  work  which 
can  claim  literary  consideration.  During  the  last  half- 
century,  on  the  other  hand,  the  American  stage  has  de 
veloped  all  over  the  country  a  popularity  and  an  organi 
zation  which  seem  favorable  to  literary  prospects.  At 
the  beginning  of  this  century  there  were  very  few 
theatres  in  the  United  States;  to-day  travelling  dramatic 
companies  patrol  the  continent.  Every  town  has  its 
theatre,  and  every  theatre  its  audience.  Until  now,  to  be 
sure,  the  plays  most  popular  in  America  have  generally 
come  straight  from  Europe,  and  the  plays  made  here  have 
been  apt  unintelligently  to  follow  European  models.  Now 
and  again,  however,  there  have  appeared  signs  that  various 
types  of  American  character  could  be  represented  on  the 
stage  with  great  popular  effect;  and  the  rapid  growth  of 
the  American  theatre  has  provided  us  with  an  increasing 
number  of  skilful  actors.  A  large  though  thoughtless 
public  of  theatre-goers,  a  school  of  professional  actors 
who  can  intelligently  present  a  wide  variety  of  character, 
and  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  American  theatrical  men  to 
produce,  amid  stupidly  conventional  surroundings,  vivid 
studies  from  life,  again  represent  conditions  of  promise. 
If  a  dramatist  of  commanding  power  should  arise  in  this 
country,  he  might  find  ready  more  than  a  few  of  the  con 
ditions  from  which  lasting  dramatic  literatures  have  flashed 
into  existence. 

The  stage,  of  course,  though  centred  in  New  York,  is 


New  York  Since  1857  369 

by  no  means  limited  to  that  city.  Nor  is  New  York  the 
only  region  in  the  Middle  States  where  literature  has  grown 
during  the  past  thirty  years.  Philadelphia,  during  that  Phiiadei- 
period,  has  contributed  to  American  letters  several  names  pbia' 
which  cannot  be  neglected.  GEORGE  HENRY  BOKER 
(1823-1890)  was  a  dramatic  poet,  whose  work,  begun 
so  long  ago  as  1847,  is  still  worth  reading.  Mr.  HENRY 
CHARLES  LEA'S  (1825-)  works  on  ecclesiastical  history 
are  important  and  authoritative.  Dr.  HORACE  HOWARD 
FURNESS'S  (1833-)  variorum  edition  of  Shakspere  is  the 
most  comprehensive  and  satisfactory  setting  forth  which 
has  ever  been  made  of  the  plays  with  which  he  has  dealt. 
Dr.  WEIR  MITCHELL  (1830-)  who  is  among  the  most  emi 
nent  of  American  physicians,  has  produced  during  his 
later  years  poems  and  novels  which  would  have  given  him 
fame  by  themselves.  And  Mr.  OWENWISTER'S  (1860-) 
stories  of  Western  life  are  likely  to  become  the  permanent 
record  in  literature  of  a  passing  epoch  in  our  national  life. 
Every  one  of  the  writers  at  whom  we  have  now  glanced 
may  perhaps  prove  in  years  to  come  worthy  of  more  at 
tention  than  it  has  been  in  our  power,  as  contemporaries, 
to  bestow.  Doubtless,  too,  we  might  have  touched  on 
many  more;  but  these  would  only  have  emphasized  the 
truth  which  must  long  ago  have  forced  itself  upon  us. 
This  contemporary  writing  is  too  near  us  for  confident 
summary.  All  we  can  surely  say  is  that  our  Middle  Summary. 
States,  as  they  used  to  be  called,  are  now  dominated 
by  New  York.  This  town,  whose  domination  for  the 
moment  is  not  only  local  but  national,  owes  its  pre 
dominance  to  that  outburst  of  material  force  which 
throughout  the  victorious  North  followed  the  period  of 
the  Civil  War.  What  may  come  of  it  no  one  can  tell. 


370  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

Hardly  anything  about  it  is  as  yet  distinct.  There  is, 
however,  one  exception.  The  Middle  States,  and  to  a 
great  degree  the  city  of  New  York  itself,  produced  one 
eccentric  literary  figure,  who  has  emerged  into  an  isola- 
>  tion  sometimes  believed  eminent.  This  is  Walt  Whitman. 


II 

WALT  WHITMAN 

REFERENCES 

WORKS:  Leaves  of  Grass,  Boston:  Small,  Maynard  &  Co.,  1898; 
Complete  Prose  Works,  Boston:  Small,  Maynard  &  Co.,  1898;  Com 
plete  Writings,  Camden  Edition,  10  vols.,  New  York:  Putnam,  1902. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM:  John  Burroughs,  Whitman  (Vol.  X  of 
Burroughs's  Works,  Riverside  Edition,  Boston:  Houghton,  1896);  Sted- 
man,  Poets  of  America,  chap,  x;  *R.  L.  Stevenson,  Familiar  Studies 
of  Men  and  Books;  *William  Clarke,  Walt  Whitman,  New  York :  Mac- 
millan,  1892;  *H.  L.  Traubel  and  others,  In  re  Walt  Whitman,  Phila 
delphia:  McKay,  1893. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:    Foley,  307-310. 

SELECTIONS:  *Carpenter,  389-402;  Griswold,  Poets,  626-627;  Sted- 
man,  221-232;  *Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VII,  501-513. 

WALT  WHITMAN  (1819-1892)  was  almost  exactly  con 
temporary  with  Lowell.  No  two  lives  could  have  been 
much  more  different.  Lowell,  the  son  of  a  minister,  closely 
related  to  the  best  people  of  New  England,  lived  amid  the  Life. 
gentlest  academic  and  social  influences  in  America.  Whit 
man  was  the  son  of  a  carpenter  and  builder  on  the  out 
skirts  of  Brooklyn;  the  only  New  England  man  of  letters 
equally  humble  in  origin  was  Whittier. 

The  contrast  between  Whitman  and  Whittier,  however, 
is  almost  as  marked  as  that  between  Whitman  and  Lowell. 
Whittier,  the  child  of  a  Quaker  farmer  in  the  Yankee  coun 
try,  grew  up  and  lived  almost  all  his  life  amid  guileless  in 
fluences  Whitman,  born  of  the  artisan  class  in  a  region 
close  to  the  largest  and  most  corrupt  centre  of  popula- 


372  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

tion  on  his  native  continent,  had  a  rather  vagrant  youth 
and  manhood.  At  times  he  was  a  printer,  at  times  a 
school-master,  at  times  editor  of  stray  country  newspapers, 
and  by  and  by  he  took  up  his  father's  trade  of  carpenter 
and  builder.  Meanwhile  he  had  rambled  about  the  coun 
try  and  into  Canada;  but  in  general  until  past  thirty  years 
old,  he  was  apt  to  be  near  the  East  River.  The  New 
York  thus  familiar  to  him  was  passing,  in  the  last  days  of 
the  Knickerbocker  School,  into  its  metropolitan  existence. 
The  first  edition  of  Whitman's  Leaves  of  Grass  appeared 
in  1855,  tne  vear  which  produced  the  Knickerbocker  Gal 
lery. 

During  the  Civil  War  he  served  devotedly  as  an  army 
nurse.  After  the  war,  until  1873,  he  held  some  small 
Government  clerkships  at  Washington.  In  1873  a  paralytic 
stroke  brought  his  active  life  to  an  end ;  for  his  last  twenty 
years  he  lived  an  invalid  at  Camden,  New  Jersey. 

Until  1855,  when  the  first  edition  of  Leaves  of  Grass 
appeared  in  a  thin  folio,  some  of  which  he  set  up  with  his 
own  hands,  Whitman  had  not  declared  himself  as  a  man  of 
letters.  From  that  time  to  the  end  he  was  constantly 
publishing  verse,  which  from  time  to  time  he  collected  in 
increasing  bulk  under  the  old  title.  He  published,  too, 
some  stray  volumes  of  prose, — Democratic  Vistas  (1871), 
Writings.  Specimen  Days  and  Collect  (1882-83),  and  the  like. 
Prose  and  poetry  alike  seem  full  of  a  conviction  that  he  had 
a  mission  to  express  and  to  extend  the  spirit  of  democracy, 
which  he  believed  characteristic  of  his  country.  Few 
men  have  ever  cherished  a  purpose  more  literally 
popular.  Yet  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  man  of  letters  in 
this  country  ever  appealed  less  to  the  masses. 

Beyond  question  Whitman  had  remarkable  individuality 


Walt  Whitman 


373 


and  power.     Equally  beyond  question  he  was  among  the 

most  eccentric  individuals  who  ever  put  pen  to  paper. 

The  natural  result  of  this  has  been  that  his  admirers  have 

admired  him  intensely;  while  whoever  has  found  his  work 

repellent  has   found   it   irritating.     Particularly   abroad, 

however,  he  has  attracted  much  critical  attention;  and 

many  critics  have  been  disposed 

to   maintain    that    his    formless 

prophecies    of     democracy    are 

deeply  characteristic  of  America. 

The   United    States,  they   point 

out,   are     professedly   the    most 

democratic  country  in  the  world ; 

Whitman  is  professedly  the  most 

democratic  of  American  writers; 

consequently    he    must    be    the 

most  typical. 

The  abstract  ideal  of  democra 
cy  has  never  been  better  summed 
up  than  in  the  well-known  watch 
words  of  republican  France :  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity. 
In  the  progress  of  American  democracy,  however,  one  of  Democ- 
these  ideals  has  been  more  strenuously  kept  in  mind  than  racy' 
the  other  two.     Practical  democracy  in  America  has  been 
chiefly  inspired  by  the  ideal  of  liberty.     The  theoretical 
democracy  prevalent  in  Europe,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
tended  rather  to  emphasize  the  ideal  of  fraternity,  and, 
still  more,  the  principle  of  human  equality.     And  this 
ideal  of  equality,  carried  to  logical  extreme,  asserts  all 
superiority,  all  excellence,  to  be  a  phase  of  evil. 

Now,  Walt  Whitman's  gospel  of  democracy  certainly 
included  liberty  and  laid  strong  emphasis  on  fraternity. 


374  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

The  ideal  which  most  appealed  to  him,  however,  was  that 
of  equality.  Though  he  would  hardly  have  assented  to 
such  orthodox  terms,  his  creed  seems  to  have  been  that, 
as  God  made  everything,  one  thing  is  just  as  good  as 
another.  This  dogma  of  equality  clearly  involves  a  trait 
which  has  not  yet  been  generally  characteristic  of  Ameri 
can  thought  or  letters, — a  complete  confusion  of  values. 
In  the  early  days  of  Renaissance  in  New  England,  to  be 
sure,  Emerson  and  the  rest,  dazzled  by  the  splendors  of 
a  new  world  of  art  and  literature,  made  small  distinction 
confusion  between  those  aspects  of  it  which  are  excellent  and  those 
which  are  only  stimulating.  At  the  same  time  they  ad 
hered  as  firmly  as  the  Puritans  themselves  to  the  ideal  of 
excellence;  and  among  the  things  with  which  they  were 
really  familiar  they  pretty  shrewdly  distinguished  those 
which  were  most  valuable,  either  on  earth  or  in  heaven. 
With  Walt  Whitman,  on  the  other  hand,  everything  is 
confused. 

Take,    for    example,    a   passage   from   his    "Song   of 
Myself,"  which  contains  some  of  his  best-known  phrases: 

"A  child  said  What  is  the  grass?  fetching  it  to  me  with  full  hands; 
How  could  I  answer  the  child?     I  do  not  know  what  it  is  any 
more  than  he. 

"I  guess  it  must  be  the  flag  of  my  disposition,  out  of  hopeful  green 
stuff  woven. 

"Or  I  guess  it  is  the  handkerchief  of  the  Lord, 
A  scented  gift  and  remembrancer  designedly  dropt, 
Bearing  the  owner's  name  someway  in  the  corners,  that  we  may 
see  and  remark,  and  say  Whose? 

"Or  I  guess  the  grass  is  itself  a  child,  the  produced  babe  of  vege 
tation. 


Walt  Whitman  375 

"Or  I  guess  it  is  a  uniform  hieroglyphic, 

And  it  means,  Sprouting  alike  in  broad  zones  and  narrow  zones. 
Growing  among  black  folds  as  among  white, 

Kanuck,  Tuckahoe,  Congressman,  Cuff,  I   give    them  the  same, 
I  receive  them  the  same. 

"And  now  it  seems  to  me  the  beautiful  uncut  hair  of  graves. 

"Tenderly  will  I  use  you,  curling  grass, 
It  may  be  you  transpire  from  the  breasts  of  young  men, 
It  may  be  if  I  had  known  them  I  would  have  loved  them, 
It  may  be  you  are  from  old  people,  or  from  offspring  taken  soon 

out  of  their  mothers'  laps, 
And  here  you  are  the  mothers'  laps. 

"The  grass  is  very  dark  to  be  from  the  white  heads  of  old  mothers, 
Darker  than  the  colorless  beards  of  old  men, 
Dark  to  come  from  under  the  faint  red  roofs  of  mouths." 

Here  is  perhaps  his  best-known  phrase,  "the  beautiful 
uncut  hair  of  graves."  Here  are  other  good  phrases,  like 
"the  faint  red  roofs  of  mouths."  Here,  too,  is  undoubt 
edly  tender  feeling.  Here,  into  the  bargain,  is  such  rub 
bish  as  "I  guess  it  is  the  handkerchief  of  the  Lord,"  and 
such  jargon  as  "Kanuck,  Tuckahoe,  Congressman,  Cuff." 
In  America  this  literary  anarchy,  this  complete  confusion 
of  values,  is  especially  eccentric;  for  America  has  gen 
erally  displayed  an  instinctive  sense  of  what  things  are 
worth.  One  begins  to  see  why  Whitman  has  been  so  A  Quality 
much  more  eagerly  welcomed  abroad  than  at  home.  His  American 
conception  of  equality,  utterly  ignoring  values,  is  not  that 
of  American  democracy,  but  rather  that  of  European. 
His  democracy,  in  short,  is  the  least  native  which  has  ever 
found  voice  in  our  country.  One  deep  grace  of  American 
democracy  has  been  a  tacit  recognition  that  excellence  is 
admirable. 


376  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

Sometimes,  of  course,  he  was  more  articulate.  The 
Civil  War  stirred  him  to  his  depths;  and  he  drew  from  it 
such  noble  verses  as  "My  Captain,"  his  poem  on  the  death 
of  Lincoln,  or  such  little  pictures  as  "Ethiopia  Saluting 
the  Colors."  Even  in  bits  like  these,  however,  which 
come  so  much  nearer  form  than  is  usual  with  Whitman, 
one  feels  his  perverse  rudeness  of  style.  Such  eccentricity 
of  manner  is  bound  to  affect  different  people  in  different 
ways.  One  kind  of  reader,  naturally  eager  for  individ- 
Eccen-  uality  and  fresh  glimpses  of  truth,  is  disposed  to  identify 
Manner.  oddity  and  originality.  Another  kind  of  reader  instinc 
tively  distrusts  literary  eccentricity.  In  both  of  these 
opinions  there  is  an  element  of  truth.  Some  writers  of 
great  power  prove  naturally  unable  to  express  themselves 
properly.  There  have  been  great  men,  and  there  will  be 
more,  whom  fate  compels  either  to  express  themselves  un- 
couthly  or  else  to  stay  dumb.  The  critical  temper  which 
would  hold  them  perverse,  instead  of  unfortunate,  is  mis 
taken.  On  the  other  hand,  that  different  critical  temper 
which  would  welcome  their  perversities  as  newly  revealed 
evidences  of  genius  is  quite  as  mistaken  in  another  way. 
Oddity  is  no  part  of  solid  artistic  development;  however 
beautiful  or  impressive,  it  is  rather  an  excrescent  out 
growth,  bound  to  sap  life  from  a  parent  stock  which  with 
out  it  might  grow  more  loftily  and  strongly. 

Walt  Whitman's  style  is  of  this  excrescent  kind;  it  is 
something  which  nobody  else  can  imitate  with  impunity. 
That  it  was  inevitable  you  will  feel  if  you  compare 
"Ethiopia  Saluting  the  Colors"  or  "My  Captain"  with 
the  unchecked  perversities  of  his  verse  in  general.  The 
"Song  of  Myself, "  which  we  may  take  as  generally  repre 
sentative  of  his  work,  is  so  recklessly  misshapen  that  you 


Walt  Whitman  377 

cannot  tell  whether  its  author  was  able  to  write  in  tech 
nical  form.  When  you  find  him,  however,  as  in  those 
lesser  pieces,  attempting  to  do  so,  you  at  once  feel  that  his 
eccentricity  is  a  misfortune,  for  which  he  is  no  more  to 
blame  than  a  deaf  and  dumb  man  is  for  expressing  emotion 
by  inarticulate  cries.  The  alternative  would  have  been 
silence;  and  Whitman  was  enough  of  a  poet  to  make  one 
glad  that  he  never  dreamed  of  that. 

In  this  decadent  eccentricity  of  Whitman's  style  there 
is  again  something  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  this  country. 
American  men  of  letters  have  generally  had  deep  artistic 
conscience.  Now  and  again,  to  be  sure,  they  have  chosen 
to  express  themselves  in  what  at  first  seems  to  be  quite 
another  manner.  They  have  tried,  for  example,  to  repro 
duce  the  native  dialects  of  the  American  people.  As  we 
remarked  of  the  Biglow  Papers,  however,  this  "dialect" 
literature  of  America  often  reveafe  on  analysis  an  artistic 
conscience  as  fine  as  Irving's,  or  Poe's,  or  Hawthorne's. 
The  vagaries  of  Walt  Whitman,  on  the  other  hand,  seem 
utterly  remote  from  literary  conscience.  Whitman's  style, 
in  short,  is  as  little  characteristic  of  America  as  his  temper 
is  of  traditional  American  democracy.  In  America  his 
oddities  were  more  eccentric  than  they  would  have  been 
anywhere  else. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  an  aspect  in  which  Whitman  His  Best 
seems  not  only  native  but  even  promising.  His  life  fell 
in  chaotic  times,  when  our  past  had  faded  and  our  future 
had  not  yet  sprung  into  being.  Bewildering  confusion, 
fused  by  the  accident  of  his  lifetime  into  the  seeming  unity 
of  a  momentary  whole,  was  the  only  aspect  of  human  ex 
istence  which  could  be  afforded  him  by  the  native  country 
which  he  so  truly  loved.  For  want  of  other  surroundings 


378  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

he  was  content  to  seek  the  meaning  of  life  amid  New  York 
slums  and  dingy  suburban  country,  in  the  crossing  of  the 
Brooklyn  ferry,  or  in  the  hospitals  of  the  Civil  War.  His 
lifelong  eagerness  to  find  in  life  the  stuff  of  which  poetry 
is  made  has  brought  him,  after  all,  the  reward  he  would 
most  have  cared  for.  In  one  aspect  he  is  thoroughly 
American.  The  spirit  of  his  work  is  that  of  world-old 
anarchy;  his  style  has  all  the  perverse  oddity  of  paralytic 
decadence;  but  the  substance  of  which  his  poems  are 
made — their  imagery  as  distinguished  from  their  form  or 
their  spirit — comes  wholly  from  his  native  country.  In 
this  aspect,  then,  though  probably  in  no  other,  he  may, 
after  all,  throw  light  on  the  future  of  literature  in  America. 


Ill 

LATER  NEW   ENGLAND 

REFERENCES 

WORKS  :  Dr.  Hale's  works  have  been  collected  in  a  uniform  edition, 
10  vols.,  Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  1898-1901.  Colonel  Higginson's 
works  are  similarly  collected  in  7  vols.,  Boston  :  Houghton,  1900.  Bishop 
Brooks's  works  are  published  by  E.  P.  Button  &  Co. ;  Emily  Dickinson's 
and  Miss  Alcott's,  by  Roberts  Brothers ;  Miss  Jewett's,  Celia  Thaxter's, 
Sill's,  Aldrich's,  Fiske's,  and  Winsor's,  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. ; 
Mary  Wilkins's,  by  the  Harpers. 

BIOGRAPHY,  CRITICISM,  and  BIBLIOGRAPHY:  For  biographies,  see 
the  dictionaries  of  American  biography ;  for  criticism,  the  reviews  and 
magazine  articles  indicated  in  Poole's  Index;  for  lists  of  titles,  with  dates, 
see  Foley  or  Whitcomb. 

SELECTIONS:  Stedman  and  Hutchinson  (see  index  in  Vol.  XI). 

BEFORE  passing  on  to  those  parts  of  America  to  which 
we  have  not  yet  turned — the  South  and  the  West — we 
must  glance  at  what  has  occurred  in  New  England  since 
its  Renaissance.  There  is  no  better  way  of  beginning 
than  to  recall  the  men  who  were  living  at  Boston  in  1857, 
the  year  with  which  our  consideration  of  modern  New 
York  began.  Everett,  Ticknor,  Prescott,  Motley,  Park- 
man,  Emerson,  Whittier,  Longfellow,  Lowell,  Holmes, 
and  Hawthorne  were  all  alive,  and  many  of  them  at  the 
height  of  their  powers.  We  need  go  no  farther.  Try 
to  name  the  men  of  letters  living  in  Boston  to-day  whose 
reputation  is  surely  more  than  local,  and  you  will  discover 
at  once  that  the  present  is  a  period  of  decline. 

379 


380  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

Though  this  decline  cannot  yet  be  thoroughly  accounted 
for,  two  or  three  facts  about  it  are  obvious.  For  one  thing, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  the  intellectual  Renaissance  of 
New  England  coincided  with  its  period  of  commercial 
prosperity,  which  began  with  foreign  commerce,  and 
soon  passed  into  local  manufactures  and  local  railways. 
The  During  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  Boston 

Decline  of  1111  •          • 

New  was    probably    the    most    prosperous    city   in   America. 

England.  Throughout  this  period,  however,  the  prosperity  of  Boston 
never  crystallized  in  what  nowadays  would  be  consid 
ered  large  fortunes.  The  great  West,  meanwhile,  was 
untamed  prairie  and  wilderness. 

The  intellectual  leadership  of  Boston  may  roughly  be 
said  to  have  lasted  until  the  Civil  War.  That  great 
national  convulsion  affected  the  Northern  States  some 
what  as  an  electric  current  affects  temporarily  separate 
chemicals;  it  flashed  the  Union  into  new  cohesion.  The 
wildest  imagination  of  1860  could  hardly  have  conceived 
such  centralized  national  power  as  in  1900  had  become 
commonplace  to  American  thought.  One  price  which 
every  separate  region  must  pay  for  such  national  union 
is  a  decline  of  local  importance. 

its  External  Again,  a  few  years  after  the  Civil  War  the  Pacific  Rail 
way  was  at  last  completed.  Long  before  this  our  foreign 
commerce  had  disappeared.  The  opening  of  the  con 
tinental  transportation  lines  naturally  stimulated  that 
already  great  development  of  wheat-growing  and  the  like 
which  now  makes  our  Western  prairies  perhaps  the  chief 
grain-producing  region  of  the  world.  Coal,  and  oil,  too, 
and  copper,  and  iron  began  to  sprout  like  weeds.  The 
centre  of  economic  importance  in  America  inevitably 
shifted  westward.  Meantime,  New  England  had  lost 


Later  New  England  381 

that  mercantile  marine  which  might  conceivably  have 
maintained  its  importance  in  international  trade. 

Again  still,  the  immense  development  of  Western  wealth 
since  1860  has  resulted  in  enormous  private  fortunes. 
Though  the  fortunes  of  wealthy  New  Englanders  have  un 
doubtedly  increased,  they  have  not  *  increased  in  like 
proportion  with  the  fortunes  of  the  West.  Such  a  state  of 
economic  fact  could  not  fail,  at  least  for  a  while,  to  bring 
about  a  marked  change  in  American  ideals.  The  immi 
grant  clergy  of  New  England  held  such  local  power  as 
involves  personal  eminence ;  such  power  later  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  bar;  and  during  the  Renaissance  of  New 
England,  literature  itself  had  influence  enough  to  make 
personal  eminence  its  most  stimulating  prize.  To-day, 
for  better  or  worse,  power  and  eminence  throughout 
America  have  momentarily  become  questions  rather  of 
enterprising  wealth. 

These  external  causes  would  perhaps  have  brought  to  An  internal 
an  end  the  leadership  of  New  England;  but  we  can  see  c 
now  as  well  that  in  the  form  which  its  Renaissance  took, 
there  was  something  which  could  not  last  long.  As  we 
look  back  on  that  period  now,  its  most  characteristic  phase 
appears  to  have  been  that  which  began  with  Unitarianism, 
passed  into  Transcendentalism,  and  broke  out  into  militant 
reform.  These  movements  were  all  based  on  the  funda 
mental  conception  that  human  beings  are  inherently  good. 
This  naturally  involved  the  right  of  every  individual  to 
think  and  to  act  as  he  chose.  Free  exercise  of  this  right 
for  a  while  seemed  to  uphold  the  buoyant  philosophy 
which  asserted  it.  So  long  as  human  beings  were  con 
trolled  by  the  discipline  of  tradition,  their  vagaries  were 
not  so  wild  as  to  seem  disintegrating.  As  the  years  went 


382 

on,  however,  this  tendency  inevitably  led  to  excessive  in 
dividualism.  So  in  recent  times  the  writers  of  New  Eng 
land  have  tended  to  seem  rather  solitary  individuals  than 
contemporary  members  of  a  friendly  or  contentious  school 
of  letters. 

Among  them,  or  rather  apart  from  the  rest,  in  the  ripe 
ness  of  an  age  which  has  come  so  gently  that  it  hardly 
seems  age  at  all,  are  three  who  in  years  belong  to  the  older 
period. 

Mrs.  Howe.  Mrs.  JULIA  WARD  HOWE  (1819-),  though  born  and 
educated  in  New  York,  has  lived  in  Boston  ever  since  her 
marriage  in  1843  to  Dr.  Samuel  Gridley  Howe,  whose 
work  in  alleviating  the  misfortunes  of  the  blind  accom 
plished  so  much  as  almost  to  obscure  his  equally  enthu 
siastic  work  in  the  cause  of  liberty — first  in  Greece,  later 
in  the  antislavery  movement  of  New  England.  Mrs. 
Howe  shared  in  the  philanthropic  impulses  of  her  hus 
band;  she  has  been  a  constant  and  eager  supporter  of 
various  reforms;  and  is  now  among  the  principal  advo 
cates  of  suffrage  for  women.  A  public  speaker  of  apti 
tude  and  skill,  she  has  published  less  than  she  has 
uttered;  but  her  "Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic,"  begin 
ning  with  that  thrilling  line, 

"Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord," 

seems  the  supreme  expression  of  the  devoted  spirit  which 
animated  the  best  antislavery  enthusiasm.  For  along 
with  its  fervid  sincerity  and  its  noble  simplicity — traits 
which  might  be  paralleled  in  Whittier — it  has  that  indefin 
able  power  of  appeal  to  popular  feeling  which  has  made  its 
opening  words  part  of  the  idiom  of  our  nation.  Besides 


Later  New  England  383 

this  lyric,  the  portion  of  Mrs.  Howe's  writing  which  now 
seems  most  significant  is  that  which  records  her  vivid 
reminiscences  of  the  times  through  which  she  has  lived 
and  worked. 

Something  like  this  seems  true  of  Colonel  THOMAS 
WENTWORTH  HIGGINSON  (1823-),  who  has  devoted  himself 
with  equal  constancy  and  enthusiasm  to  similar  principles 
of  reform.  Born  at  Cambridge,  he  graduated  from 
Harvard  College  and  from  the  Harvard  Divinity  School, 
and  was  for  some  years  a  Liberal  minister.  He  was 
conspicuous  in  the  antislavery  movement,  and  in  1862  he 
was  given  command  of  the  first  regiment  recruited  from 
contraband  slaves.  He  served  until  1864,  when  he  was 
compelled  to  leave  the  service  by  a  wound.  Ever  since 
that  time  he  has  been  an  industrious  and  prolific  wTiter, 
and  an  eager  advocate  of  reform,  particularly  in  the  matter 
of  suffrage  for  women.  Colonel  Higginson  is  remarkable 
not  only  for  courteous  bravery  and  devotion  to  his  ideals, 
but  for  kindly  tolerance  of  opinions  honestly  at  variance 
with  his  own.  His  writings  range  from  poems  and  stories 
and  faithful  criticisms  to  authoritative  works  of  biography 
and  history.  But  it  now  seems  that  none  of  them  are 
at  once  more  delightful  and  significant  than  his  Cheerful 
Yesterdays  (1898),  his  Contemporaries  (1899),  and  the  other 
reminiscences  in  which  he  has  preserved  vivid  pictures  of 
the  older  time  which  he  knew  so  thoroughly. 

Less  radical  in  his  sympathies,  but  no  less  philanthropic, 
is  Dr.  EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE  (1822-).  A  nephew  of  Dr.  Hale. 
Edward  Everett,  and  son  of  an  eminent  journalist,  he 
graduated  from  Harvard,  and  became  a  Unitarian  minis 
ter.  Throughout  his  pastoral  career  he  has  been  not  only 
a  distinguished  preacher,  but  a  copious  writer,  often  an 


384  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

active  journalist,  and  a  constant  promoter  of  good  works. 
He  is  now  (1904)  Chaplain  of  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States.  His  writings  range  as  widely  as  those  of  Colonel 
Higginson.  Among  them  his  short  story,  The  Man  With 
out  a  Country  (1863),  stands  out  as  probably  the  most 
popular  expression  in  our  literature  of  the  Union  sen 
timent  during  the  Civil  War — just  as  Mrs.  Howe's  "Battle 
Hymn"  is  the  most  popular  expression  of  antislavery 
fervor  at  the  same  time.  Aside  from  this,  the  portions  of 
Dr.  Hale's  copious  work  to  which  one  is  most  apt  to  turn 
are  those,  like  his  New  England  Boyhood  (1893),  which 
deal  with  the  elder  New  England  of  which  he  himself  was 
no  little  part. 

Our  three  survivors  of  the  Renaissance  in  New  England 
Reminis-  thus  seem  particularly  memorable  for  reminiscences, 
Tendency,  written  in  the  declining  days  of  Boston,  of  more  active 
times.  What  makes  these  reminiscences  at  once  char 
acteristic  and  stimulating  is  that  none  of  the  three  has 
ever  so  lost  heart  as  for  a  moment  to  feel  that  we  are  yet 
fallen  on  evil  times.  All  three  have  seen  reforms  dear  to 
them  struggle  and  prevail.  In  all  three  faith  and  hope 
are  as  strong  as  ever,  and  charity  is  strengthening  with 
the  quiet  vigor  of  years.  Yet  it  is  hard  to  avoid  the  thought 
that  there  is  more  than  accidental  significance  in  the  fact 
that  so  much  of  their  later  work  deals  rather  with  the  past 
than  with  the  future. 

All  three  can  vividly  remember  the  times  when  the 
oratory  of  New  England  was  at  its  best,  and  the  scholarly 
history,  and  the  philosophy,  and  the  literature.  Our  busi 
ness  now  is  to  inquire  what  has  happened,  since  the  time 
of  Hawthorne,  to  these  four  phases  of  expression  which 
were  so  vital  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 


Later  New  England  385 

Oratory  seems  extinct.  Throughout  the  country,  in 
deed,  the  press  has  steadily  tended  to  supplant  the  plat 
form;  and  it  is  hardly  invidious  to  say  that  there  is  no 
newspaper  in  New  England  which  carries  anything  like 
such  influence  as  the  orators  exerted  there  in  their  palmy 
days.  Even  the  pulpit  has  distinctly  declined.  Since 
the  untimely  death  of  the  late  Bishop  of  Massachusetts,  Bishop 
PHILLIPS  BROOKS  (1835-1893),  who  was  everywhere  Brooks 
recognized  as  a  great  preacher,  there  has  been  no  divine 
in  New  England  whose  utterances  could  certainly  com 
mand  more  than  local  attention. 

With  history  the  case  is  different.  The  earlier  type  of 
historians,  who  seemed  as  much  men  of  letters  as  men 
of  learning,  came  to  an  end  with  Parkman.  Later  his-  History, 
torical  activity  has  seemed  a  matter  rather  of  science  than 
of  literature;  but  it  has  been  considerable.  State  historical 
societies  and  local  antiquarians  and  genealogists  have 
been  making  more  and  more  accessible,  often  in  excellent 
editions,  the  copious  records  of  colonial  New  England. 
Among  more  sustained  historical  works  have  been  the 
learned  co-operative  histories  edited  by  JUSTIN  WINSOR 
(1831-1897),  who  was  equally  eminent  as  a  scholar 
and  as  the  librarian  first  of  the  Public  Library  of  Boston 
and  later  of  Harvard  College.  His  chief  original  work 
is  an  exhaustive  life  of  Christopher  Columbus  (1891). 
Somewhat  more  characteristic  are  his  Memorial  History 
of  Boston  (1880-1881)  and  his  very  elaborate  Narrative 
and  Critical  History  of  America  (1886-1889).  In  both  of 
these  he  planned  and  supervised  vast  works,  of  which  the 
separate  chapters  were  written  under  his  guidance,  by 
expert  authorities.  The  title  of  his  second  co-operative 
history  is  sufficient  to  remind  us  that  historical  activity  in 


886 

New  England  has  by  no  means  confined  itself  to  local 
matters.  In  general,  however,  it  has  confined  itself  to 
matters  American. 

Henry  HENRY    ADAMS    (1838-),  for  example,  a  son  of  the 

first  Charles  Francis  Adams,  and  a  grandson  and  a  great- 
grandson  of  the  two  New  England  presidents  of  the  United 
States,  may  fairly  be  counted  a  New  Englander,  though 
for  many  years  he  has  lived  in  Washington.  His  History 
of  the  United  States,  from  1801  to  1817,  which  appeared 
between  1889  and  1891,  combines  accuracy  of  detail  with 
grasp  of  his  subject  and  scale  of  composition  in  a  manner 
which  fairly  achieves,  in  dealing  with  a  limited  epoch, 
what  Macaulay  did  not  live. to  achieve  when  he  tried  to 
deal  with  two  English  centuries.  His  brothers,  the  sec- 
c.  F.  ond  CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS  (1833-)  and  BROOKS 

Brooks        ADAMS  (1848-),  have  published,   and  are  still  publish- 
Adams.        ing,  suggestive  critical  works  on  historical  matters  in  gen 
eral,  mostly  as  they  are  related  to  the  history  of  America. 
Rhodes.       JAMES  FORD  RHODES  (1848-),  a  native  of    Ohio,  who 
settled   in    Boston   about    1895,    is    still    engaged    there 
on  his  History  of  the  United  States  from  the  Compromise 
of  1850.     This  work,  of  which  the  first  volume  appeared 
in  1893,  is  remarkable  for  the  judicial  temper  with  which 
it  sets  forth,  in  excellent  literary  form,  the  events  of  a 
stirring  period   still  within  living  memory.     And  JOHN 
Ropes.         CODMAN  ROPES  (1836-1899),  an  eminent  member  of  the 
Boston  bar,  was  everywhere  recognized  as  an  authority 
on  military  history.     His  chief  books  concern  the  cam 
paigns  of  Napoleon  and  those  of  our  own  Civil  War. 

Excellent  as  the  work  of  these  historians  has  been,  often 
in  form  as  well  as  in  substance,  it  has  not  had  quite  the 
sort  of  literary  charm  which  made  their  more  romantic 


Later  New  England  387 

predecessors  widely  popular.  Something  of  such  popular 
quality,  without  the  misleading  glamor  of  romance,  per 
vaded  the  historical  work  of  JOHN  FISKE  (1842-1901),  Fiske. 
who  devoted  his  last  fifteen  years  chiefly  to  the  writing  of 
a  series  of  books  on  American  history.  Taken  together, 
these  cover  the  subject  cursorily  yet  with  a  pervasive 
understanding  of  its  significance  in  modern  philosophic 
thought,  from  the  discovery  of  America  until  after  the 
Revolution.  Fiske,  who  graduated  from  Harvard  in  1863, 
was  a  voracious  reader  with  a  marvellous  memory,  with 
remarkable  power  of  perceiving  the  relations  between 
apparently  diverse  phases  of  his  information,  and  with 
unfailing  command  of  lucid  and  fluent  style.  His  slight 
lack  of  originality  prevented  him  from  vagary,  and  made 
him  a  safe  guide  for  those  general  readers  who  in  recent 
years  have  been  attracted  to  history  as  a  matter  not  of 
romance  but  of  philosophy. 

For  Fiske,  before  turning  to  history,  had  been  known 
as  a  popular  writer  of  philosophy.     His  Cosmic  Philosophy  Phii- 
(1874)  is  an  admirably  compact  and  lucid  statement  of  osop  y> 
the   by  no  means  compact   or  lucid   tenets  of  Herbert 
Spencer;  and  Fiske  went  on,  with  due  respect  for  the  prin 
ciples  of  evolution,  to  set  forth  in  various  works  the  new 
light  which  he  conceived  these  principles  to  throw  on  the 
world-old  questions  of  God,  of  eternity,  and  of  human 
destiny. 

In  this  extreme  recoil  from  the  metaphysical  abstractions 
of  Transcendentalism,  the  whole  tendency  of  New  England 
philosophy,  so  far  as  it  has  reached  the  stage  of  popular 
publication,  is  typified.  New  England  still  loves  general 
principles,  but  it  no  longer  trusts  those  principles  unless  it 
can  be  comfortably  assured  that  they  are  not  belied  by 


388 


The  Rest  of  the  Story 


William 
James. 


Royce. 


ascertained  fact.  The  most  recent  popular  philosopher 
exemplifies  this  tendency.  WILLIAM  JAMES  (1842-),  whose 
father,  the  elder  Henry  James  (1811-1882),  was  a  searcher 
for  truth  of  the  earlier  type,  has  been  for  many  years, 
after  a  medical  education,  Professor  of  Psychology  at 
Harvard.  His  Principles  0}  Psychology  (1890)  and  his 
Gifford  lectures,  the  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience, 
delivered  at  Edinburgh  in  1902,  have  given  him  inter 
national  reputation. 

William  James  is  not  alone  among  Harvard  philoso 
phers  either  in  publication  or  in  international  recognition. 
His  colleague,  JOSIAH  ROYCE  (1855-),  has  also  been  a 
Gifford  lecturer;  and  his  works  on  metaphysics  combine 
extraordinary  power  of  stating  the  tenets  of  past  thinkers 
with  a  strength  of  philosophic  imagination  which  bids 
fair  to  make  him  one  with  whom  future  thinkers  must 
reckon.  Another  colleague,  GEORGE  HERBERT  PALMER 
(1842-),  has  published  helpful  comments  on  the  conduct 
of  life ;  and  some  admirable  translations  from  the  Greek, 
santayana.  Another  still,  far  younger,  GEORGE  S  A  NT  AY  ANA  (1863-), 
has  published  some  noteworthy  books  of  aesthetics,  and 
two  or  three  volumes  of  poetry  which  no  lover  of  poetry 
should  neglect.  As  popular  philosophers,  however, 
these  men  have  not  appealed  to  so  wide  a  public  as 
their  more  obviously  scientific  contemporaries,  Fiske 
and  James. 

Nor  have  the  other  than  philosophic  writers  now  or 
lately  connected  with  Harvard  proved  widely  popular. 
No  student  of  English  literature,  to  be  sure,  can  ever 
neglect  the  work  of  FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD  (1825-1896), 
whose  final  collection  of  English  and  Scottish  popular 
ballads  is  a  model  of  sympathetic  learning.  Nor  can  any 


Palmer. 


Professor 
Child. 


Later  New  England  389 

consideration  of  New  England  during  the  years  we  now 
have  in  mind  neglect  the  gracious  figure  of  CHARLES  Professor 
ELIOT  NORTON  (1827-),  in  whose  person  and  whose 
utterances  Harvard  students  of  the  last  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century  found  embodied  their  ideal  of  culture 
and  of  bravery.  It  has  not  been  Professor  Norton's  fort 
une  to  sympathize  with  the  tendencies  of  the  age  amid 
which  he  has  faithfully  maintained  the  ideals  from  which 
he  has  never  swerved.  And  the  spirit  of  his  gentle  but 
unfaltering  assertion  of  what  he  believes  the  truth  has 
taught  his  pupils  a  lesson  the  deeper  and  the  more  lasting 
from  the  fact  that  many  of  them  could  not  accept  the  letter 
of  his  teachings. 

Something  of  the  same  moral  quality  has  appeared  in 
the  work  of  the  man  who  throughout  Professor  Norton's 
academic  career  has  been  President  of  Harvard  College. 
And  it  is  pleasant  to  think  that  this  touch  of  community 
between  men  who  seem  in  many  ways  so  different  may 
be  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT  president 
(1834-)  is  Professor  Norton's  cousin,  that  both  are  sprung  * 
from  families  and  from  traditions  eminent  and  honorable 
in  old  New  England.  The  sympathies  of  Professor  Norton 
have  tended  to  emphasize  the  ideals  of  the  past.  Those  of 
President  Eliot  have  tended,  amid  what  most  men  would 
have  found  disheartening  lack  of  sympathy,  to  dwell  on  the 
hopes  which  he  has  never  ceased  to  discern  in  the  future. 
His  influence  on  the  conduct  of  education  in  America  is  at 
last  recognized  as  the  most  potent  of  his  time,  if  not  indeed 
in  all  our  national  history.  If  his  principles  may  be  sum 
marized,  they  may  perhaps  be  stated  thus :  The  surest  hope 
of  democracy  lies  in  a  diffusion  of  education  which  shall 
admit  to  the  highest  available  training  every  human  being 


390  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

who  is  capable  of  benefiting  by  it.  Accordingly,  every 
merely  technical  obstacle  which  may  interpose  itself  be 
tween  the  most  remote  primary  school  in  the  Western  wil 
derness  and  the  full  privileges  of  our  universities  must,  if 
possible,  be  removed.  And  yet,  all  the  while,  the  stand 
ard  of  the  higher  education  must  be  maintained.  So  all  his 
life  his  task  has  been  at  once  to  destroy  needless  barriers 
and  to  uphold  those  which  are  needful. 

It  may  appear  that  we  have  dwelt  too  long  on  Harvard; 
but  Harvard  remains  the  chief  intellectual  centre  of  that 
part  of  New  England  from  which  the  literature  of  our 

Harvard.  Renaissance  sprang.  It  was  at  Harvard,  on  the  whole, 
that  the  elder  school  of  New  England  letters  was  nurtured. 
Harvard  men  edited  the  old  North  American  Review. 
Through  Fields's  time  the  influence  of  Harvard  traditions 
wasi  paramount  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  Emerson  was 
a  Harvard  man;  Longfellow  and  Lowell  were  Harvard 
professors.  And  so  on.  The  contrast  between  the  elder 
Harvard  and  the  new  becomes  apparent.  Since  the  days 
of  the  Renaissance,  which  we  considered  by  themselves, 
Harvard,  for  all  its  incessant  activities,  has  been  of  no 
great  literary  importance.  It  has  tended  to  an  intellectual 
isolation  from  which  the  separate  men  who  have  addressed 
the  public  have  addressed  them  each  separately  and  in 
his  own  way ;  and  among  all  these  men  on  whom  we  have 
touched,  only  one  has  attempted  a  contribution  to  pure 
literature.  This  is  Professor  Santayana,  in  his  two  or 
three  volumes  of  poetry. 

Throughout  the  period  which  we  now  have  in  mind,  the 

Poetry.  production  of  poetry  in  New  England  has  been  copious. 
A  good  deal  of  this  verse  has  been  of  more  than  respectable 
quality;  but  so  little  of  it  has  emerged  into  distinct  excel- 


Later  New  England  391 

lence  that,  if  anyone  were  asked  to  name  the  poets  of 
New  England  in  recent  times  he  might  find  himself  at 
fault.  He  might  perhaps  recall  the  pleasant  memory 
of  CELIA  THAXTER  (1836-1894),  who  passed  most  of 
her  busy,  brave,  useful  life  at  the  Isle  of  Shoals,  where 
she  was  born  and  died,  and  whose  verses,  together  with 
one  or  two  volumes  of  prose,  delightfully  record  the 
temper  with  which  such  humanity  as  hers  could  surpass 
what  to  most  human  beings  would  have  been  the  be 
numbing  limits  of  isolation.  He  might  recall,  too,  as  of 
New  England  origin,  the  less  distinct  figure  of  EDWARD 
ROWLAND  SILL  (1841-1887),  whose  few,  but  admirable, 
poems  bespeak  the  isolation  of  a  Transcendentalist  born 
too  late.  He  would  probably  recall  the  hauntingly 
mournful  isolation  phrased  in  the  still  more  solitary 
poems  of  EMILY  DICKINSON  (1830-1886),  whose  mood 
laments  a  vanished  past  almost  as  palpably  as  the  mood 
of  Transcendentalism  welcomed  an  unfathomed  future. 
But  almost  the  only  figure  which  would  define  itself  with 
certainty  would  be  that  of  THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 
(1836-)! 

Aldrich,  like  Fields  before  him,  passed  most  of  his 
youth  in  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire.  Then,  for  a  while, 
he  was  engaged  first  in  business,  and  later  in  journalism  at 
New  York.  He  did  not  settle  in  Boston  until  he  was 
nearly  thirty  years  old ;  but  as  he  has  lived  there  ever  since, 
he  has  long  been  recognized  as  the  chief  surviving  man  of 
letters  there  resident.  The  circumstances  of  his  earlier 
years,  however,  have  naturally  precluded  him  from  imme 
diate  inheritance  of  local  traditions.  And  his  exquisitely 
finished  verse — never  copious,  but  never  free  from  a  loving 
care  for  every  detail  which  makes  it  seem  better  each  time 


392  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

you  read  it — accordingly  appears  almost  as  independent 
of  local  influences  as  was  the  verse  of  Poe  in  the  New 
York  of  the  '405. 

With  Aldrich's  prose  work  the  case  has  been  different. 
His  Story  o]  a  Bad  Boy  (1870)  records  boy  life  in  the  dying 
New  Hampshire  seaport  as  vividly  as  Lucy  Larcom's  New 
England  Girlhood  (1889)  records  her  memories  of  Massa 
chusetts  in  the  '303.  And  although  Aldrich's  other  stories, 
and  the  like,  have  less  New  England  flavor,  there  is  not  a 
little  of  it  in  many  of  them;  nor  is  there  any  of  them  which 
we  cannot  turn  to  with  certainty  of  such  satisfaction  as 
should  come  from  works  of  conscientious  art.  None  the 
less,  the  fact  that  Howells,  an  Ohio  man,  was  succeeded 
in  control  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  by  Aldrich,  whose  early 
years  were  passed  in  New  Hampshire,  New  Orleans,  and 
New  York,  is  a  fact  which  both  typifies  and  explains  the 
manner  in  which  the  older  literary  traditions  of  New 
England  have  been  disintegrating. 

Of  the  writers  of  fiction  who  have  flourished  there  mean- 
Fiction,  while,  the  most  popular  have  been  women.  The  Little 
Women  (1867)  of  LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  (1832-1888)  is  a 
story  of  New  England  girlhood  as  vivid  and  as  true  as  were 
Jacob  Abbott's  "  Rollo"  tales  of  New  England  childhood  a 
generation  before.  The  earlier  stories  of  Miss  MARY 
WILKINS  (1862-)  portray  with  touching  pathos  and  humor 
the  decline  of  the  New  England  country,  as  the  period  with 
which  we  are  now  concerned  came  upon  it.  And  the  stories 
of  Miss  SARAH  ORNE  JEWETT  (1849-)  are  equally  true  to 
the  pathos  of  this  declining  New  England,  and  at  the  same 
time  almost  as  exquisite  in  finish  as  are  the  stories  in 
general  of  Aldrich.  Meanwhile,  Mrs.  MARGARET  DELAND 
(1857-),  a  Pennsylvanian,  whose  married  life  has  been 


Later  New  England  393 

passed  in  Boston,  has  written,  after  one  or  two  volumes  of 
delicate  poetry,  a  number  of  stories  which  deal,  uncom 
promisingly  yet  tenderly,  with  various  religious  and  social 
questions  such  as  the  conditions  of  modern  life  are  bound 
everywhere  to  raise. 

There  are  men  in  Boston  the  while  who  have  written 
fiction,  and  written  it  well.  Even  so  cursory  a  glance  as 
ours  cannot  fairly  neglect  the  names  of  ARLO  BATES 
(1850-),  poet,  novelist,  and  faithful  teacher  of  literature; 
of  THOMAS  RUSSELL  SULLIVAN  (1849-),  whose  stories  vie 
with  Aldrich's  in  delicacy  of  finish,  and  more  than  vie  with 
them  in  significance;  and  of  FREDERIC  JESUP  STIMSON 
(1855-),  a  lawyer  and  a  publicist,  whose  occasional  con 
tributions  to  literature  have  indicated  extraordinary  range 
and  power.  And  perhaps  the  chief  work  of  fiction  which 
has  proceeded  from  New  England  since  the  elder  days  is 
the  Unleavened  Bread  (1902)  of  ROBERT  GRANT  (1852-), 
whose  copious  earlier  work,  produced  amid  the  duties  of  a 
busy  legal  and  judicial  career,  is  obscured  chiefly  by  the 
exceptional  strength  of  this  unflinching  study  of  the  mis 
chief  a  bad  woman  can  do,  when  she  has  no  idea  that 
she  is  bad. 

But,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  these  New  England  Summary, 
writers  of  the  present  day  form  no  school,  like  the  school 
which  reached  its  maturity  under  the  influence  of  the  New 
England  Renaissance.  We  have  touched  incidentally  on  a 
number  of  names.  The  list  is  by  no  means  exhaustive; 
yet  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  names  which  we  have  chanced 
to  neglect  would  have  added  any  definitely  new  features  to 
the  picture  we  have  tried  to  discern  in  outline.  The  work 
of  modern  New  England  is  faithful,  and  technically  skilful. 
It  is  not  animated  by  any  general  purpose,  and  the  fact 


394  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

that  so  much  of  it  tends  in  substance  to  be  reminiscent 
indicates  that,  on  the  whole,  it  is  hardly  national  in  range. 
It  is  too  close  to  us  for  more  certain  generalization. 

One  thing,  however,  must  long  have  been  evident.  So 
far  we  have  altogether  neglected  three  novelists  of  more 
eminence  than  any  whom  we  have  mentioned.  These 
are  Howells,  James,  and  Crawford.  The  reason  why  we 
have  neglected  them  is  that  they  seem  important  enough 
for  separate  consideration. 


IV 

THE   NOVEL:   HO  WELLS,   JAMES,   AND    CRAWFORD 

REFERENCES 

WORKS  :  The  works  of  Howells  are  published  by  the  Harpers ;  those 
of  Crawford,  by  Macmillan.  The  earlier  works  of  James  were  mostly 
published  by  Osgood  and  by  Ticknor  and  Fields,  Boston ;  the  later  ones 
are  from  various  publishers.  For  lists  of  titles,  see  Foley. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM  :  For  biographies,  see  any  good  dictionary 
of  American  biography ;  for  criticism,  consult  Poole's  Index  for  references 
to  various  reviews  and  critical  notes.  Particularly  to  be  noted  is  Howells's 
article  on  James  in  The  Century  for  November,  1882. 

SELECTIONS  :  For  Howells,  Stedman,  and  Hutchinson,  IX,  479-505 ; 
James,  ibid.,  X,  179-197;  Crawford,  ibid.,  XI,  143-153. 

BOTH  in  New  York  and  in  New  England  the  most 
popular  form  of  recent  literature  has  probably  been  the 
short  story.  From  influences  in  a  way  common  to  both 
regions,  combined  with  influences  quite  distinct,  there 
have  emerged  meanwhile  the  three  American  novelists 
who  have  attained  such  eminence  as  to  demand  separate 
consideration.  One — Howells — is  completely  American; 
the  other  two— James  and  Crawford — are  Americans 
whose  principal  work  has  been  deeply  affected  by  Euro 
pean  environment.  It  is  worth  our  while  to  consider  them 
in  turn. 

WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS  (1837-)  was  born  in  Ohio,  Howeiis. 
where  he  tried  journalism  and  meanwhile  wrote  verse. 
He  early  came  to  New  England  and  met  Longfellow, 
Lowell,  and  the  other  chief  figures  of  our  New  England 
Renaissance.     In  1860  he  wrote  a  campaign  life  of  Lincoln. 

395 


396  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

Between  1861  and  1865  he  was  our  consul  at  Venice.  In 
1872  he  succeeded  Fields  as  editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 
For  some  years  he  lived  in  or  near  Boston.  For  the  past 
ten  or  twelve  years  he  has  lived  in  New  York.  There, 
particularly  in  the  "Easy  Chair"  of  Harper's  Monthly, 
he  has  probably  had  as  marked  an  influence  upon  fellow 
writers  as  upon  the  public,  wTho  know  him  better  through 
his  books. 

These  books  are,  broadly  speaking,  essays,  farces,  and 
novels.  The  essays  have  sometimes  been  reminiscent  of 
Ohio  or  early  New  England,  sometimes  finely  appreciative 
of  literature.  The  farces,  slight  as  such  things  must  be, 
have  shown  brilliancy  of  dialogue  and  persistent  reality 
of  characterization.  This  last  quality  appears  even  more 
conspicuously  in  the  most  important  work  of  Howells — 
his  novels.  As  early  as  1871  he  wrote  Their  Wedding 
Journey;  since  then  he  has  published  some  forty  novels, 
of  which  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham  (1885)  is  perhaps  the 
best.  All  are  patient,  insistent,  yet  often  brilliant  studies 
of  average  men  and  women. 

Howells  has  written  so  much,  so  faithfully,  and  in  a 
spirit  at  once  so  earnestly  American  and  so  kindly,  that  it 
is  hard  to  say  why  he  has  not  achieved  more  certainly 
powerful  results.  His  chief  limitation  seems  to  be  a  kind 
Diffidence,  of  lifelong  diffidence,  which  has  forbidden  a  feeling  of  inti 
mate  familiarity  even  with  the  scenes  and  the  people  of  his 
own  creation.  This  is  perhaps  due  to  the  circumstances  of 
his  life.  An  Ohio  boy,  he  was  of  course  a  foreigner  in  Italy ; 
and  during  his  long  and  welcome  residence  near  Boston 
he  never  seems  to  have  felt  quite  at  home.  His  pleasant 
reminiscences  of  his  friendships  with  the  eminent  literary 
men  of  the  past  show  implicitly  the  sentiments  rather  of 


397 

a  pilgrim  than  of  a  fellow.  And  the  vivid  creatures  of  his 
imagination  are  after  all  seen  externally.  He  never  quite 
sympathizes  with  them;  he  never  seems  quite  to  understand 
them.  In  brief,  his  novels  rather  indicate,  with  tireless 
energy,  the  material  of  which  literature  might  be  made 
than  mould  that  material  into  final  form.  With  all  his 
limitations,  nevertheless,  he  is  surely  the  most  noteworthy 
American  novelist  of  the  years  through  which  he  is  still 
happily  living. 

For  it  is  not  quite  certain  that  HENRY  JAMES  (1843-)  Henry 
should  be  unreservedly  called  American.  His  earlier  Jan 
years  were  passed  in  America,  partly  in  New  York  and 
partly  in  New  England;  his  first  novels  concerned  Amer 
ican  life,  and  were  published  in  Boston;  but  for  more 
than  twenty  years  he  has  lived  abroad,  mostly  in  Eng 
land;  and  his  later  work  is  perhaps  the  most  subtle 
study  of  English  life,  in  its  more  complex  aspects,  that  has 
ever  been  made.  The  so-called  "international  novel" 
is  largely  of  his  construction.  Roderick  Hudson  (1875), 
that  model  short  story  Daisy  Miller  (1878),  and  the  Portrait 
of  a  Lady  (1881)  are  among  his  best-known  works.  He 
has  also  written  a  life  of  Hawthorne  and  several  other 
volumes  of  very  discerning  criticism. 

Temperamentally,  James  is  completely  an  artist.  From 
beginning  to  end,  his  effort  has  been  to  feel,  as  deeply 
as  possible,  the  distinct  character  of  any  subject  with 
which  he  has  dealt;  and  to  set  it  forth  in  the  most  delicate 
shades  of  its  significance.  The  exquisite  refinement  of 
both  his  perception  and  his  style  has  proved  insidious. 
Year  by  year  his  work  has  grown  more  subtle,  more  dif 
ficult  to  understand  without  an  intensity  and  persistence 
of  attention  which  no  man  of  letters  may  confidently 


398 


The  Rest  of  the  Story 


demand.  Yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  such  persistent 
attention  to  the  pages  of  James  will  never  lack  reward. 
Among  contemporary  English  novelists,  none  is  more 
masterly. 

Crawford.  FRANCIS  MARION  CRAWFORD  (1854-)  is  less  American 
still.  Except  for  the  fact  that,  though  born  in  Italy,  he 
is  of  American  origin  and  has  always  been  loyal  to  Amer 
ican  tradition,  he  can  hardly  be  called  American  at  all. 
He  began  writing  fiction  only  after  prolonged  study  in 
various  parts  of  the  world.  Of  his  fifty  years,  all  but 
four  or  five,  at  intervals,  have  been  passed  abroad. 

Without  pretence  to  the  first  rank  in  literature,  Craw 
ford  is  a  born  story-teller.  There  is  not  one  of  his  many 
volumes  to  which  one  cannot  confidently  turn  for  enter 
tainment.  And  his  intimate  knowledge  of  modern  Italy  is 
said  to  give  his  stories  of  contemporary  Italian  life — such 
as  Saracinesca  (1887) — a  value  similar  to  that  of  Anthony 
Trollope's  stories  about  Victorian  England.  Crawford 
lacks  the  pertinacity  of  observation  which  is  among  the 
chief  merits  of  Howells ;  he  is  utterly  without  such  subtlety 
as  is  at  once  the  chief  grace  and  the  chief  error  of  James. 
He  is  less  important  than  either  of  them,  but  far  more 
readable.  And  in  spite  of  qualities  which  sometimes 
seem  meretricious,  he  has  a  robust  vigor  of  feeling  and  of 
manner  which  makes  his  work  throughout  inspiriting. 

Such  are  the  three  American  novelists  who,  from  among 
such  influences  as  produced  our  elder  literature,  have 

Summary,  surely  achieved  eminence.  Clearly  they  are  too  diverse, 
and  too  near  us,  for  generalization.  We  must  turn  now 
to  regions  of  our  country  less  remarkable  in  literary  his 
tory  than  either  New  England  or  New  York,  but  not  to  be 
neglected.  And  first  to  the  South. 


THE    SOUTH 

REFERENCES 

GENERAL:  Louise  Manly,  Southern  Literature,  Richmond:  Johnson 
Publishing  Co.,  1895  ;  Woodberry,  America  in  Literature,  New  York : 
Harper,  1903 ;  pp.  114-149 ;  Trent,  Simms  (see  below) ;  W.  M.  Basker- 
vill,  Southern  Writers.  Biographical  and  Critical  Studies,  Nashville: 
Barber  &  Smith.  (Harris,  Lanier,  Cable,  Craddock,  Page,  Allen, 
and  others.) 

SIMMS  :  Novels,  10  vols.,  New  York :  Armstrong,  1882  ;  Poems,  2  vols., 
New  York:  Redfield,  1853.  W.  P.  Trent's  William  Gilmore  Simms, 
Boston  :  Houghton,  1892  (AML),  has  a  good  bibliography.  For  selections, 
see  Duyckinck.  II,  430-433 ;  Griswold's  Poetry,  345-348 ;  Griswold's 
Prose,  505-517;  Stedman,  106-107;  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  VI, 
270-277. 

HAYNE:  Poems,  Boston:  Lothrop,  1882.  See  Sidney  Lanier's  "Paul 
H.  Hayne's  Poetry"  in  Music  and  Poetry,  New  York:  Scribner,  1898, 
pp.  197-211.  There  are  selections  from  Hayne  in  Stedman  and  Hutch 
inson,  VIII,  461-466. 

TIMROD  :  Timrod's  Works  (Memorial  Edition),  Boston :  Houghton, 
1899,  contains  a  memoir.  For  selections,  see  Stedman  and  Hutchinson, 
VIII,  408-411. 

LANIER  :  Works,  New  York  :  Scribner  (uniform,  but  no  collected  edi 
tion)  ;  for  a  list  of  titles,  see  Foley,  165-166.  To  the  edition  of  Lanier's 
poems,  edited  by  his  wife  (New  York :  Scribner,  1884),  W.  H.  Ward 
contributed  a  biography.  There  are  selections  in  Stedman  and  Hutch 
inson,  X,  145-151. 

For  biographies  of  later  Southern  writers,  whose  works  are  easily  acces 
sible,  see  any  good  dictionary  of  American  biography ;  for  criticism  upon 
them,  see  the  magazine  articles  and  reviews  which  can  readily  be  found 
by  means  of  Poole's  Index. 

THE  Middle  States  and  New  England,  after  certain  lit 
erary  achievements,  seem  now  in  a  stage  either  of  decline 

399 


400  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

or  at  best  of  preparation  for  some  literature  of  the  future. 
The  other  parts  of  the  country,  at  which  we  have  now 
to  glance,  need  not  detain  us  long.  However  copious 
their  production,  it  has  not  yet  afforded  us  much  of 
permanent  value. 

Up  to  the  Civil  War  the  South  had  produced  hardly  any 
writing  which  expressed  more  than  a  sense  that  standard 
models  are  excellent.  For  this  comparative  literary  life- 
lessness  there  is  obvious  historical  reason.  The  difference 
conditions  between  the  Southern  climate  and  the  Northern  has  often 
been  dwelt  on;  so  has  the  difference  between  the  social 
systems  of  the  two  parts  of  the  country.  It  has  often  been 
remarked,  too,  that  the  oligarchic  system  of  the  South 
developed  powerful  politicians.  At  the  time  of  the  Revolu 
tion,  for  example,  our  most  eminent  statesmen  were  from 
Virginia;  and  when  the  Civil  War  came,  though  the 
economic  superiority  of  the  North  was  bound  to  win, 
the  political  superiority  of  the  South  seemed  generally 
evident.  One  plain  cause  of  these  facts  has  not  been 
much  emphasized. 

From  the  beginning,  the  North  was  politically  free  and 
essentially  democratic;  its  social  distinctions  were  nothing 
like  so  rigid  as  those  which  have  generally  diversified  civil 
ized  society.  There  was  no  mob ;  the  lower  class  of  New 
England  produced  Whittier.  In  a  decent  Yankee  village, 
to  this  day,  you  need  not  lock  your  doors  at  night;  and 
when  crime  turns  up  in  the  North,  as  it  does  with  increas 
ing  frequency,  you  can  still  trust  the  police  to  attend  to  it. 
In  the  South,  at  least  from  the  moment  when  slavery  estab 
lished  itself,  a  totally  different  state  of  affairs  prevailed. 
The  African  slaves,  constantly  increasing  in  number, 
seemed  the  most  dangerous  lower  class  which  had  ever 


The  South  401 

faced  an  English-speaking  government.  The  agricult 
ural  conditions  of  Southern  life  meanwhile  prevented 
population  from  gathering  in  large  centres.  As  slavery 
developed,  the  South  accordingly  grew  to  be  a  region 
where  a  comparatively  small  governing  class,  the  greater 
part  of  whom  lived  separately  on  large  country  places, 
felt  themselves  compelled,  by  the  risk  of  servile  insur 
rection,  to  devote  their  political  energies  to  the  rigid  main 
tenance  of  established  order.  Whether  slavery  was  really 
so  dangerous  as  people  thought  may  be  debatable;  there 
can  be  no  question  that  people  living  in  such  circum-  conserva- 
stances  could  hardly  help  believing  it  so.  Surrounded  by  * 
an  increasing  servile  population  of  aliens,  the  ruling  classes 
of  our  elder  South  dreaded  political  experiment  to  a  de 
gree  almost  incomprehensible  in  the  North.  More  and 
more,  consequently,  the  ablest  men  of  the  South  tended 
to  concentrate  their  energies  on  politics,  and  in  politics 
to  develop  increasingly  conservative  temper. 

The  natural  result  was  such  as  conservatism  would  pro 
duce  anywhere.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  a  normal 
Southerner  was  far  less  changed  from  his  emigrant  ancestor 
than  was  any  New  England  Yankee.  As  in  the  develop 
ment  of  national  character  the  North  lagged  behind 
England,  so  the  South  lagged  behind  the  North.  Long 
ago  we  saw  how  our  first  great  civil  war — the  American 
Revolution — sprang  from  mutual  misunderstandings,  in 
volved  in  the  different  rates  of  development  of  England 
and  her  American  colonies.  Something  of  the  same  kind, 
we  can  see  now,  underlay  the  Civil  War  which  once 
threatened  the  future  of  the  American  Union. 

Of  course  the  South  was  never  destitute  of  powerful  or 
of  cultivated  minds;  and  from  the  beginning  there  were 


402  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

Southern  books.  A  rather  fantastic  habit  includes  among 
these  the  voyages  of  Captain  John  Smith  and  the  Eliza 
bethan  translation  of  Ovid  by  George  Sandys,  a  portion  of 
which  was  made  on  the  banks  of  the  James  River;  and  there 
are  various  old  historical  writings  from  the  South.  The 
best  of  these  seem  the  posthumously  published  manu- 
wiiiiam  scripts  of  WILLIAM  BYRD  (1664-1744),  of  Westover,  Vir- 
westover.  gima>  whose  style  is  very  like  that  of  his  contemporary 
Englishmen  of  quality.  In  the  fact  that  Byrd's  records  of 
contemporary  history  were  written  for  his  private  pleasure 
by  a  great  landed  proprietor,  and  that  they  saw  the  light 
only  when  he  had  been  nearly  a  century  in  his  grave, 
there  is  something  characteristic  of  the  South.  Southern 
gentlemen  of  an  intellectual  turn  collected  considerable 
libraries;  but  these  libraries,  chiefly  of  serious  standard 
literature,  tended  to  become  traditional  repositories  of 
culture.  Southern  taste  commanded  each  generation  to 
preserve  its  culture  unaltered,  much  as  political  necessity 
compelled  the  South  to  keep  unaltered  its  government 
and  its  society. 

At  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  of  course,  the  develop 
ment  of  political  intelligence  in  the  South  produced  power- 
Poiiticai  ful  political  writing.  The  Declaration  of  Independence, 
ting'  which  came  straight  from  the  pen  of  THOMAS  JEFFERSON 
(1743-1826),  is  the  masterpiece  of  a  school  in  which 
Jefferson,  though  perhaps  the  principal  figure,  was  by  no 
means  solitary.  As  in  the  North,  too,  this  political  writ 
ing  tended  during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
to  develop  into  rhetorical  oratory;  and  though  among 
American  orators  Webster  and  Everett  and  Choate  and 
their  New  England  contemporaries  seem  the  best,  no 
special  study  of  American  oratory  can  neglect  such  men 


The  South  403 

as  John  Caldwell  Calhoun  (1782-1850),  Robert  Young 
Hayne  (1791-1839),  or  Henry  Clay  (1777-1852).  Oratory, 
however,  is  not  pure  letters,  but  rather  a  phase  of  public 
life ;  and  our  concern  is  chiefly  with  literature. 

After  Jefferson  the  chief  Southerners  who  should  be 
mentioned  in  literary  history  are  the  following :  WILLIAM 
WIRT  (1772-1834),  a  Virginia  lawyer,  for  some  years  At 
torney-General  of  the  United  States,  whose  elaborately 
rhetorical  Life  of  Patrick  Henry  (1817)  places  its  author 
among  the  more  important  American  biographers;  JOHN 
MARSHALL  (1755-1835),  the  most  eminent  Chief  Justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  also  a  Virginian, 
whose  celebrated  Life  of  Washington  (1805)  is  perhaps 
the  most  distinguished  American  biography;  EDWARD 
COATE  PINCKNEY  (1802-1828),  a  Maryland  lawyer 
and  professor,  who  published  certain  volumes  of  poetry 
which  reveal  a  true  lyric  gift;  WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS 
(1806-1870);  JOHN  PENDLETON  KENNEDY  (1795-1870); 
AUGUSTUS  BALDWIN  LONGSTREET  (1790-1870);  CHARLES 
ETIENNE  ARTHUR  GAYARRE  (1805-1895);  JOHN  ESTEN 
COOKE  (1830-1886) ;  PAUL  HAMILTON  HAYNE  (1830-1886) ; 
HENRY  TIMROD  (1829-1867);  and  SIDNEY  LANIER  (1842- 
1881).  Among  notable  Southern  periodicals  have  been 
the  Southern  Review,  which  was  published  at  Charles 
ton  in  1828  and  had  a  short  life;  the  Southern  Literary  Peri 
Messenger,  which  was  published  in  Richmond  from  1835 
to  1864  and  was  at  one  time  edited  by  Poe;  and  the  South 
ern  Quarterly  Review,  which  was  established  at  Charles 
ton  in  1848,  remained  for  several  years  under  the  editor 
ship  of  Simms,  and  came  to  an  end  in  1856. 

Of  these  names  the  earlier  clearly  belong  to  the  tradi 
tions  of  the  eighteenth  century.     Several  of  the  later  are 


404  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

Kennedy,  already  almost  forgotten.  Kennedy,  a  Maryland  man 
eminent  in  political  life,  was  the  author  of  the  novels 
Swallow  Barn  (1832),  Horse-Shoe  Robinson  (1835),  and 

Long-  others.  Longstreet,  a  Georgia  man,  a  graduate  of  Yale, 
a  lawyer,  a  judge,  a  Methodist  minister,  and  the  president 
of  two  or  three  Southern  colleges,  contributed  to  various 
newspapers  sketches  of  Southern  life,  which  in  1840  were 
collected  into  a  volume  called  Georgia  Scenes.  These  are 
successful  prototypes  of  the  local  short  stories  which  during 
the  past  fifteen  or  twenty  years  have  so  generally  appeared 

Gayarre.  in  various  parts  of  the  country.  Gayarre  was  a  New 
Orleans  lawyer.  His  works  on  the  history  of  his  native 
State,  published  between  1847  and  1854,  and  culminating 
in  a  three-volume  History  of  Louisiana  published  in 
1866,  are  respectable  and  authoritative  local  histories. 
Late  in  life  he  produced  one  or  two  novels  and  comedies, 

Cooke.  which  were  never  widely  read.  Cooke,  of  Virginia,  a  law 
yer  and  a  Confederate  soldier,  devoted  ^he  chief  activity 
of  his  mature  years  to  literature.  Besides  lives  of  General 
Lee  and  Stonewall  Jackson,  he  wrote  certain  romances 
connected  with  his  native  State  before  and  after  the 
Civil  War. 

It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  if  these  sporadic  writers 
had  not  been  Southerners,  they  would  have  been  even 
more  forgotten  than  they  are,  along  with  the  Northern 
Literati  momentarily  enshrined  in  1846  by  Edgar  Allan 
Poe.  There  are  only  four  Southern  names  which  now 
seem  of  literary  importance;  and  of  these  only  one  stands 
for  considerable  work  before  the  Civil  War. 

simms.  This  is  \VILLIAM  GiLMORE  SIMMS,  who  was  born  in 

Charleston,    South    Carolina,    was    apprenticed    to    an 
apothecary,  and  later  began  the  study  of  law.     At  the 


The  South  405 

age  of  twenty-one  he  married,  and  a  year  later  he  pub 
lished  a  volume  of  commonplace  poetry.  From  that  time 
until  his  death  he  produced  no  less  than  eighty-seven 
volumes. 

The  immense  bulk  of  Simms's  writings  involved  hasty 
and  careless  composition;  and  the  romances,  to  which  his 
popularity  was  chiefly  due,  are  not  only  careless  but  ob 
viously  affected  by  both  Cooper  and  Scott,  not  to  speak 
of  minor  influences.  In  their  day  some  of  them  were 
widely  popular;  at  present  even  their  names  are  almost 
forgotten.  For  all  their  careless  haste,  however,  they 
indicate  uncommon  vigor  of  temperament,  and  amid 
the  obvious  conventions  of  their  plots  and  characters  they 
constantly  reveal,  like  the  earlier  romances  of  Brockden 
Brown  and  of  Cooper,  a  true  sense  of  the  background  in 
which  the  scenes  were  laid. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  Civil  War,  beyond  much  question, 
Simms  was  by  far  the  most  considerable  literary  man 
whom  the  Southern  States  produced.  In  South  Carolina 
he  was  long  recognized  as  the  principal  figure  of  a  literary 
epoch  contemporary  with  that  in  which  New  England  pro 
duced  Emerson  and  Thoreau,  and  Whittier,  and  Long 
fellow,  and  Lowell,  and  Holmes,  and  Hawthorne.  This 
collocation  of  names  is  enough.  The  chief  Southern  man 
of  letters  before  the  Civil  War  did  vigorous,  careless  work 
of  the  sort  which  had  produced  more  lasting  monuments 
in  the  New  York  of  Fenimore  Cooper.  Cooper's  work, 
we  have  seen,  was  virtually  complete  in  1832 ;  and  Simms's 
did  not  begin  until  1833.  IR  literature,  as  in  temper,  the 
South  lagged  behind  the  North. 

The  next  Southern  writer  who  deserves  attention  is  Hayne. 
PAUL  HAMILTON  HAYNE,  a  nephew  of  that  distinguished 


406  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

South  Carolina  Senator  whose  speech  on  Nullification 
in  1830  elicited  Webster's  famous  reply.  Paul  Hayne 
was  born  in  this  very  year  when  his  uncle  and  Webster 
were  debating  in  the  Senate.  He  studied  for  the  bar, 
but  devoted  himself  chiefly  to  literature  at  a  time  when 
the  literary  activity  of  Charleston  was  dominated  by 
Simms.  When  the  Civil  War  came  he  entered  the 
Southern  army;  he  broke  down  his  health  in  the  ser 
vice.  The  war  left  him,  too,  ruined  in  property;  but  he 
survived,  working  hard  at  letters  in  the  Georgia  country, 
until  1886.  Hayne  eagerly  strove  to  maintain  the  lit 
erary  dignity  of  the  native  region  which  he  passionately 
loved.  A  man  of  gentler  origin  than  Simms,  and  better 
educated,  he  seems  more  in  sympathy  with  the  formal  tra 
ditions  of  the  South  Carolina  gentry.  He  shows,  too,  an 
academic  sense  of  conventional  standards.  In  this  aspect 
Hayne  had  something  in  common  with  the  New  England 
poets.  Certainly,  compared  with  the  best  work  of  Timrod 
and  of  Sidney  Lanier,  his  poetry  seems  deficient  in  indi 
viduality  and  passion;  yet  it  reveals  a  touch  of  genuine 
ness  almost  unknown  in  the  South  until  the  fatal  days 
of  secession. 

In  1873  Hayne  edited  the  poems  of  his  friend,  HENRY 
Timrod.  TIMROD.  Timrod  had  in  him  the  stuff  of  which  poetry  is 
made,  and  the  circumstances  of  his  career  made  some  of 
his  expression  of  it  admirable.  He  was  born  in  Charles 
ton,  the  son  of  an  artisan  who  was  known  as  the  Poet 
Mechanic.  He  studied  for  a  while  at  the  University  of 
Georgia;  he  then  turned  to  the  law;  and  for  some  time  be 
fore  the  Civil  War  he  was  a  private  tutor.  During  the  war 
he  was  a  journalist.  At  the  burning  of  Columbia  during 
Sherman's  march  to  the  sea  his  property  was  totally  de- 


The  South  407 

stroyed;  in  1867  his  consequent  poverty  brought  to  an  end 
a  life  which  was  never  physically  robust. 

Among  Timrod's  poems,  one,  "The  Cotton  Boll,"  sur 
passes  the  rest.  The  eccentric  irregularity  of  its  labored 
verse  cannot  disguise  its  lyric  note ;  and  the  sense  of  Nat 
ure  which  it  reveals  is  as  fine,  as  true,  and  as  simple  as 
that  which  makes  so  nearly  excellent  Whittier's  poems 
about  New  England  landscapes.  The  closing  stanza  of 
the  poem  reveals  the  anguish  of  the  Civil  War  in  lines  of 
nobly  sustained  lyric  fervor. 

We  can  hardly  read  even  short  extracts  from  Timrod, 
however,  without  feeling,  along  with  his  lyric  quality, 
a  puzzling,  inarticulate  indistinctness.  A  similar  trait 
appears  in  the  work  of  the  most  memorable  man  of 
letters  as  yet  produced  by  the  South — SIDNEY  LANIER  Lanier. 
(1842-1881).  Born  at  Macon,  Georgia,  Lanier  graduated 
from  a  Georgia  college  in  1860,  and  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War  he  enlisted  as  a  Confederate  volunteer.  Tow 
ards  the  close  of  the  war  he  was  taken  prisoner;  the  phys 
ical  hardships  of  his  military  experience  produced  a  weak 
ness  of  the  lungs  from  which  he  never  recovered.  After  the 
war  he  was  for  a  while  a  school-teacher,  and  for  a  while  a 
lawyer  in  Alabama  and  Georgia.  In  1873  he  removed  to 
Baltimore,  where  at  first  he  supported  himself  by  playing 
the  flute  in  a  symphony  orchestra.  Soon,  however,  he 
became  known  as  a  man  of  letters;  and  in  1879,  two  years 
before  his  death,  he  was  made  a  lecturer  on  English  litera 
ture  at  Johns  Hopkins  University. 

A  true  lyric  artist,  Lanier  was  a  skilful  musician,  and 
he  wrote  genuine  poetry.  The  circumstances  of  his  life, 
however,  were  such  as  to  preclude  a  very  high  degree  of 
technical  training,  and,  at  least  until  after  the  war  had 


408  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

broken  his  health,  much  systematic  •  study.  What  he 
accomplished  under  these  circumstances  is  astonishing. 
He  was  never  popular,  and  probably  never  will  be.  His 
quality  was  too  fine  to  appeal  to  the  general  public;  his 
training  was  too  imperfect  to  make  his  critical  work  or  his 
theories  of  aesthetics  seem  important  to  technical  scholars. 
He  was  compelled,  besides,  to  write  more  than  was  good  for 
him — at  least  one  novel,  for  example,  and  versions  for  boys 
of  much  old  romance,  concerning  King  Arthur,  and  the 
heroes  of  Froissart,  the  Welsh  tales  of  the  Mabinogion,  and 
Percy's  Reliques.  He  wrote  nothing  more  characteristic, 
however,  than  The  Science  0}  English  Verse  (1880),  which 
comprises  the  substance  of  his  first  course  of  lectures  at 
Johns  Hopkins.  To  state  his  serious  and  earnest  system 
of  dogmatic  poetics  would  take  too  long.  In  brief,  he  be 
lieved  the  function  of  poetry  to  be  far  nearer  to  that  of 
music  than  it  has  generally  been  held.  The  emotional 
effect  of  poetry  he  declared  to  arise  literally  from  its  sound 
quite  as  much  as  from  its  meaning;  and  the  poetry  which 
he  wrote  was  decidedly  affected  by  this  deliberate,  sincere, 
but  somewhat  cramping  theory. 

Lanier's  lyric  quality,  as  well  as  his  self-imposed  limita- 
Marshes  tions,  appear  more  clearly  in  his  "Marshes  of  Glynn. " 
Here  his  poetical  impulse  is  expressed  in  a  musical  form 
which  he  might  have  called  symphonic.  He  is  no  longer 
writing  a  song;  he  is  working  out  a  complicated  motive,  in 
a  manner  so  entirely  his  own  that  the  first  thirty-six  lines 
compose  one  intricate,  incomprehensible  sentence.  The 
closing  passage,  easier  to  understand,  possesses  quite  as 
much  symphonic  fervor.  The  poet  has  been  gazing  out 
over  the  marshes  and  trying  to  phrase  the  limitless  emo 
tion  which  arises  as  he  contemplates  a  trackless  plain 


The  South  409 

where  land  and  sea  interfuse.    Then  the  tide  begins  to 
rise,  and  he  goes  on  thus: 

"Lo,  out  of  his  plenty  the  sea 

Pours  fast:  full  soon  the  time  of  the  flood-tide  must  be: 
Look  how  the  grace  of  the  sea  doth  go 
About  and  about  through  the  intricate  channels  that  flow 
Here  and  there,  Everywhere, 
Till  his  waters  have  flooded  the  uttermost  creeks  and  the  low-lying 

lanes 

And  the  marsh  is  meshed  with  a  million  veins 
That  like  as  with  rosy  and  silvery  essences  flow 
In  the  rose-and-silver  evening  glow. 

Farewell,  my  lord  Sun! 
The  creeks  overflow:   a  thousand  rivulets  run 
'Twixt  the  roots  of  the  sod;  the  blades  of  the  marsh -grass  stir; 
Passes  a  hurrying  sound  of  wings  that  westward  whir; 
Passes,  and  all  is  still;  and  the  currents  cease  to  run; 
And  the  sea  and  the  marsh  are  one. 

"How  still  the  plains  of  the  waters  be! 
The  tide  is  in  his  ecstasy. 
The  tide  is  at  his  highest  height: 
And  it  is  night. 

"And  now  from  the  Vast  of  the  Lord  will  the  waters  of  sleep 
Roll  in  on  the  souls  of  men, 
But  who  will  reveal  to  our  waking  ken 
The  forms  that  swim  and  the  shapes  that  creep 

Under  the  waters  of  sleep? 
And  I  would  I  could  know  what  swimmeth  below  when  the  tide 

comes  in 

On  the  length  and  the  breadth  of  the  marvellous  marshes  of 
Glynn." 

Now  this  inarticulate  verse  is  of  a  quality  which  can 
never  be  popular,  and  perhaps  indeed  is  so  eccentric  that 
one  should  be  prudent  in  choosing  adjectives  to  praise 


410  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

it.  The  more  you  read  the  "Marshes  of  Glynn, "  how 
ever,  and  the  more,  indeed,  you  read  any  of  Lanier's 
poetry,  the  more  certain  you  feel  that  he  was  among  the 
truest  men  of  letters  whom  our  country  has  produced. 
Genuine  in  impulse,  fervid  in  temper,  impressed  but  not 
overwhelmed  by  the  sad  and  tragic  conditions  of  his  life, 
and  sincerely  moved  to  write  beautifully,  he  exhibits  lyric 
power  hardly  to  be  found  in  any  other  American. 

All  this,  however,  seems  hardly  national.  Lanier's 
career  was  wholly  American,  and  almost  wholly  South 
ern;  the  emotional  temper  with  which  he  was  filled  must 
have  been  quickened  by  experience  only  in  our  own 
country.  The  things  with  which  he  chose  to  deal,  how 
ever,  might  have  come  to  him  anywhere.  The  very  fact 
which  keeps  him  permanently  from  popularity  is  perhaps 
this  lack  of  local  perception,  as  distinguished  from  a  temper 
which  could  not  help  being  of  local  origin.  So  if  Lanier's 
work  tells  us  anything  about  Southern  literature,  it  only 
tells  us,  a  little  more  surely  than  that  of  Hayne,  or  of  Tim- 
rod,  how  the  tragic  convulsion  of  our  Civil  War  waked  in 
the  South  a  kind  of  passion  which  America  had  hardly 
exhibited  before. 

Contem-          Since  the  Civil  War,  such  literature  as  has  come  from 
southern     the  South  has  been  chiefly  in  the  form  of  novels  and  short 
writers.       stories.     These,  usually  published  in  the  Northern  maga 
zines,    have   faithfully   and   sympathetically   reproduced 
Southern  scenery  and  dialect.     They  have  distinguished 
themselves  from  other  local  stories  by  a  greater  courtliness 
and  pathos  of  mood,  combined  with  skill  and  conscien 
tiousness  in  the  matter  of  style.     In  this  manner  THOMAS 
NELSON  PAGE  (1853-)  has  written  of  Virginia;  CHARLES 
EGBERT   CRADDOCK    (1850-)  of   the   Tennessee   moun- 


The  South  411 

taineers;  JAMES  LANE  ALLEN  (1849-)  °f  Kentucky; 
GEORGE  WASHINGTON  CABLE  (1844-)  of  the  Creoles 
of  Louisiana;  and  JOEL  CHANDLER  HARRIS  (1848-), 
whose  stories  of  " Uncle  Remus"  (1880,  1884)  are  nowa 
days  probably  almost  as  familiar  as  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin, 
has  vividly  depicted  the  negroes  of  Georgia. 

We  are  thus  compelled  to  feel  that  our  Southern 
regions  have  as  yet  produced  little  if  any  more  significant 
literature  than  the  North  had  produced  before  1832. 
Since  the  Civil  War  the  social  and  economic  condition  of  Summary, 
the  South  has  been  too  disturbed  for  final  expression. 
As  yet,  therefore,  the  South  presents  little  to  vary  the  gen 
eral  outlines  of  literature  in  America.  The  few  Southern 
poets,  however,  who  have  phrased  the  emotion  aroused 
by  the  Civil  War  which  swept  their  earlier  civilization  out 
of  existence,  reveal  a  lyric  fervor  hardly  yet  equalled  in 
the  North.  As  one  thinks  of  these  poets,  of  Hayne,  of 
Timrod,  and  of  Lanier,  one  begins  to  wonder  whether  they 
may  not  perhaps  forerun  a  spirit  which  shall  give  a  new 
beauty  and  power  to  American  letters  in  the  future. 


VI 

THE  WEST 

REFERENCES 

GENERAL:  Hamlin  Garland,  "The  Literary  .Emancipation  of  the 
West,"  Forum,  October,  1893 ;  Meredith  Nicholson,  The  Hoosiers, 
New  York:  Macmillan,  1900  ("National  Studies  in  American  Letters")  ; 
W.  H.  Venable,  Beginnings  of  Literary  Culture  in  the  Ohio  Valley,  Cin 
cinnati:  Robert  Clarke  &  Co.,  1891 ;  G.  E.  Woodberry,  America  in  Lit 
erature,  New  York :  Harpers,  1903,  pp.  150-182. 

WORKS:  Artemus  Ward's  complete  works  in  one  volume  are  published 
by  the  G.  W.  Dillingham  Company,  New  York;  Nasby's  works  are 
published  by  Lee  &  Shepard,  Boston  ;  Phosnixiana,  by  D.  Appleton  and 
Company,  New  York,  1903  ;  Field's  works,  12  vols.,  New  York :  Scribner, 
1900-1901 ;  Bret  Harte's  works,  19  vols.,  Boston  :  Houghton,  1900-1903. 
Joaquin  Miller's  books  were  published  by  Roberts  Brothers,  Boston; 
Riley's,  by  the  Bowen-Merrill  Co.,  Indianapolis ;  Dunne's  earlier  books, 
by  Small,  Maynard  &  Co.,  Boston ;  his  later  works  by  Russell,  New  York. 
Eggleston's  works  are  in  the  hands  of  no  single  publisher. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM  :  There  is  a  life  of  Bret  Harte  by  H.  W. 
Boynton  (New  York:  McClure,  Phillips  &  Co.,  1903),  and  of  Eugene 
Field  by  Slason  Thompson  (2  vols.,  New  York :  Scribner,  1901) ;  for 
biographies  of  the  other  authors  mentioned  in  this  chapter,  see  the  dic 
tionaries  of  American  biography.  For  criticism,  see  the  reviews  and 
critical  notices  referred  to  in  Poole's  Index. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  :  For  lists  of  titles,  with  dates,  see  Foley  or  Whitcomb. 

General  A  HUNDRED  years  ago  the  greater  part  of  our  country 

)ns-  was  still  a  wilderness.  To-day,  it  is  said,  almost  every 
available  acre  throughout  the  United  States  is  in  private 
ownership;  and  regions  which  within  living  memory 
were  still  unbroken  prairie  are  the  sites  of  cities  more 
populous  than  New  York  or  Boston  was  fifty  years  ago. 

412 


The  West  413 

From  influences  quite  beyond  human  control,  the  energies 
of  Western  people  have  accordingly  devoted  themselves  to 
the  conquest  of  Nature  on  a  scale  hitherto  unattempted. 
No  wonder  the  most  salient  trait  of  our  great  confused 
West  seems  enthusiasm  for  material  prosperity  as  distin 
guished  from  spiritual  or  intellectual  ideals.  Yet  there 
are  such  things  as  Western  ideals,  different  from  the  older 
ideals  of  New  England,  but  not  for  that  less  admirable. 
Not  only  have  these  ideals  existed,  but  occasionally,  as 
in  the  Chicago  World's  Fair  of  1893,  they  have  revealed 
themselves  in  forms  so  admirable  as  to  make  the  West 
seem  a  region  from  which  in  time  to  come  we  may  hope 
for  superbly  imaginative  expression. 

As  yet,  however,  the  West  has  not  developed  any 
such  unity  of  character  as  has  marked  our  elder  re 
gions.  So  far  as  Western  character  has  found  expression 
in  serious  literature,  this  has  consisted  chiefly  of  short 
stories  which  set  forth  the  local  characteristics  of  various 
Western  regions.  In  general,  the  energy  of  Western  lit 
erature  is  still  confined  to  popular  journalism.  Mainly 
from  this  source,  the  comic  columns  of  Western  news 
papers,  there  has  developed  a  kind  of  native  expression 
hardly  recognized  forty  years  ago,  and  now  popularly 
supposed  to  be  our  most  characteristic.  This  is  what  is 
commonly  called  American  humor. 

The  chief  trait  of  American  humor  we  have  already  American 
found  to  be  a  grave  confusion  of  fact  and  nonsense  like  that 
with  which  Franklin  records  the  "grand  leap  of  the 
whale  ...  up  the  Falls  of  Niagara."  In  like  manner, 
we  have  observed,  Irving,  Lowell,  and  Holmes  are  apt 
to  mingle  sober  truth  with  wild  extravagance.  All  these 
men  of  letters,  however,  humorists  though  they  were, 


414  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

possessed  such  sense  of  personal  dignity  and  such  literary 
accomplishment  as  to  impress  on  early  American  humor 
a  distinction  of  style,  and  to  animate  it  with  a  mood  which 
is  usually  serious  and  often  noble. 

The  form  which  American  humor  has  been  developing 
in  Western  newspapers  has  other  traits.  The  chief  of 
these,  which  is  inherent  in  the  popularity  of  Western 
journalism,  is  hard  to  define,  but  palpable  and  vital.  It 
amounts  to  a  general  assumption  that  everybody  whom 
you  address  will  entirely  understand  whatever  you  say.  A 
familiar  example  of  this  temper  pervaded  a  kind  of  enter 
tainment  frequent  in  America  thirty  or  forty  years  ago — 
the  negro  minstrel  shows.  In  these  a  number  of  men 
would  daub  their  faces  with  burnt  cork,  and  sitting  in  a 
row  would  sing  songs  and  tell  stories.  Underlying  both 
songs  and  stories  was  an  assumption  that  everybody  who 
heard  what  the  performers  said  was  familiar  with  every 
thing  they  knew — not  only  with  human  nature  and  local 
allusions,  but  also  with  the  very  names  and  personal 
oddities  of  the  individuals  they  mentioned.  To  phrase 
the  thing  colloquially,  the  whole  performance  assumed 
that  we  were  all  in  the  crowd.  This  trait  pervades  the 
"funny"  columns  of  American  newspapers,  particularly 
in  the  West;  and  it  is  mostly  from  these  columns  that 
recent  American  humor  has  emerged  into  what  approach 
it  has  made  to  literary  form. 

At  least  three  familiar  humorous  figures,  no  longer  with 
us,  typify  the  kind  of  literary  impulse  now  in  mind.  The 
John  first  was  GEORGE  HORATIO  DERBY  (1823-1861),  an  army 
officer,  born  of  a  good  Massachusetts  family,  who  spent  a 
good  deal  of  his  life  in  the  West,  particularly  in  California. 
Here,  under  the  name  of  John  Phoenix,  he  took  to  writing 


The  West  415 

for  the  newspapers  whimsical  letters,  two  volumes  of  which 
had  been  collected  and  published  before  his  death.  In  their 
day  the  Squibob  Papers  (1855)  and  Phosnixiana  (1859), 
which  grotesquely  satirize  life  in  California  during  the  early 
days  of  American  control  there,  were  popular  all  over  the 
country.  To-day  one  feels  their  extravagance  more  than 
their  fun ;  the  whole  thing  seems  overdone.  John  Phoenix, 
however,  was  undoubtedly  among  the  earliest  humorists 
of  a  school  which  has  tended  to  produce  better  and  better 
work. 

About  ten  years  after  his  time  there  came  into  notice 
a  man  whose  name  is  still  familiar  both  at  home  and  in 
England.  This  was  CHARLES  FARRAR  BROWNE  (1834- 
1867).  Born  in  Maine,  first  a  printer,  later  a  newspaper 
man,  he  drifted  to  Ohio,  where  about  1858  he  became  a  re 
porter  on  the  Cleveland  Plain  Dealer.  For  this  he  began 
to  write,  over  the  signature  of  Artemus  Ward,  humorous 
articles  which  carried  both  the  Plain  Dealer  and  his  pseu 
donym  all  over  the  country.  Just  before  the  Civil  War  he  Artenu: 
took  charge  of  a  comic  weekly  newspaper  in  New  York. 
The  war  brought  this  venture  to  an  end ;  for  the  rest  of  his 
life  he  was  a  "funny"  lecturer.  Like  the  humor  of  John 
Phcenix,  that  of  Artemus  Ward  now  seems  tediously  ex 
travagant;  and  the  essence  of  it  lies  in  his  inextricable  con 
fusion  of  fact  and  nonsense.  He  often  assumes  the  char 
acter  of  a  travelling  showman,  who  has  interviews  not  only 
with  typical  individuals  of  various  classes,  but  with  all  sorts 
of  notables,  from  Brigham  Young  to  Queen  Victoria. 
With  these  he  talks  on  intimate  terms;  the  fun  lies  chiefly 
in  the  grotesque  incongruity  between  the  persons  concerned 
and  what  they  say.  Like  Lowell  in  the  Biglow  Papers, 
he  emphasizes  his  jests  with  mad  misspelling  and  the  like; 


416  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

but  all  his  vagaries  cannot  conceal  the  sober  confusion 
of  literal  statement  and  palpable  absurdity  which  groups 
him,  despite  his  errors  of  taste,  with  Lowell  and  Irving 
and  the  other  humorists  of  our  best  literature. 

In  the  history  of  American  newspaper  humor  the  gro 
tesque  extravagance  of  Artemus  Ward  stands  midway 
between  that  of  John  Phoenix  and  that  of  a  writer,  who, 
though  no  longer  alive,  seems  much  nearer  our  own  time. 
DAVID  Ross  LOCKE  (1833-1888)  was  born  in  a  country 
village  of  New  York.  Like  Artemus  Ward,  he  was  a 
printer,  and  later  a  reporter;  later  still  he  was  editor  of  a 
local  newspaper  in  Ohio.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Civil 
War  he  began  to  write  political  satires  over  the  signature 
of  Petroleum  V.  Nasby.  The  absurdity  of  this  pseudonym 
typifies  the  pervasive  absurdity  of  his  misspelt  and  other- 

Nasby.  wise  eccentric  style.  His  satire,  however,  which  was 
widely  circulated  at  a  moment  of  national  crisis,  dealt  with 
matters  of  significance.  He  had  come  intimately  to  know 
the  border  regions  between  the  North  and  the  South.  He 
was  a  strong  Union  man ;  and  with  all  the  grotesque 
mannerisms  of  newspaper  humor  he  satirized  Southern 
character  and  those  phases  of  Northern  character  which 
sympathized  with  the  constitutional  contentions  of  the 
Confederacy.  So  in  its  day  Nasby's  work  had  political 
importance ;  it  really  helped  solidify  and  strengthen  Union 
sentiment. 

Mr.  Dooiey.  Though,  in  general,  American  newspaper  humor  is 
not  so  significant,  it  has  retained  from  Nasby's  time  the 
sort  of  contagious  vitality  found  throughout  his  writings; 
and  in  one  or  two  cases  it  has  lately  emerged  into  some 
thing  better.  The  chief  figure  in  recent  journalistic  hu 
mor  is  FINLEY  PETER  DUNNE  (1867-).  From  a  Chicago 


The  West  417 

newspaper  office,  Mr.  Dunne,  in  the  irresistible  brogue  of 
"Mr.  Dooley, "  an  Irish  saloon-keeper,  has  commented 
upon  public  affairs,  often  paying  his  respects  to  princes 
and  great  rulers,  with  a  shrewd  satire  comparable  to 
that  of  Lowell's  Biglow  Papers. 

Chicago,  whence  these  last  examples  of  newspaper  humor  Chicago 
have  come,  is  the  chief  centre  of  material  activity  in  the 
Middle  West.  The  consequent  intellectual  activity  there 
has  been  great.  We  have  already  touched  on  the  remark 
able  expression  of  this  in  the  World's  Fair  of  1893.  And 
though,  in  general,  the  intellectual  life  of  Chicago  has 
hardly  reached  the  stage  of  memorable  literary  expression, 
it  has  produced  two  or  three  writers  whom  we  cannot  fail 
to  notice. 

EUGENE  FIELD  (1850-1895),  a  journalist  in  various  Field. 
Western  cities,  who  after  1883  lived  in  Chicago,  proved  in 
his  later  work  something  more  than  a  writer  of  ephemeral 
fun.  Among  his  collected  writings,  which  include  essays, 
tales,  and  poems,  the  verses  about  children  are  perhaps 
the  most  popular.  In  these,  of  which  "Little  Boy  Blue" 
is  a  good  example,  Field  avoids  those  lapses  from  good 
taste  which  mar  some  of  his  other  work,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  is  more  than  usually  simple  and  tender.  Quite 
as  important  for  our  purpose,  however,  are  the  pages, 
often  extravagantly  remote  from  seriousness,  in  which 
Field  reveals  his  love  for  such  sound  literature  as  the  Odes 
of  Horace  or  the  English  and  Scottish  popular  ballads. 
For  all  his  eccentric  and  careless  vivacity,  these  pages 
remind  us,  Field  was  at  heart  a  true  man  of  letters. 

More  obviously  so  is  HENRY  BLAKE  FULLER  (1857-),  Fuller, 
who  first  became  known  as  the  writer  of  a  charming  Ital- 
ian  fantasy,  The  Chevalier  o\  Pensieri-Vani  (1890).  Since 


418  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

that  time  he  has  written  some  vivid  novels  of  Chicago  life, 
as  well  as  other  books  about  the  Italy  to  which  he  has 
turned  for  relief  from  the  superficial  materialism  of  the 
Illinois  metropolis.  A  similar  discontent  with  the  mate 
rial  grossness  of  his  surroundings  animates  the  interest 
ing  novels  of  ROBERT  HERRICK  (1868-),  a  graduate  of 
Harvard  who  has  for  some  years  been  Professor  of  English 
at  the  University  of  Chicago.  In  discussing  New  England, 
we  touched  on  the  fact  that  Harvard  has  lately  been  sterile 
in  the  matter  of  literary  production.  In  marked  contrast 
to  this  sterility  is  the  fact  that  not  only  Professor  Herrick's 
fiction,  but  the  genuine,  if  inarticulate  poetry  of  another 
Harvard  graduate,  WILLIAM  VAUGHAN  MOODY  (1869-), 
have  come  from  active  teachers  in  the  one  great  American 
university  which,  when  they  made  their  reputations,  was 
not  ten  years  old. 

The  Middle  West  has  meanwhile  produced  literature 
Literature  elsewhere  than  in  its  chief  material  centre.  From  Indiana, 
we'stw"  f°r  example,  have  come  the  widely  but  ephemerally  pop- 
Localities,  ular  historical  novels  of  General  LEW  WALLACE  (1827-); 
and  the  work  of  that  sound  historical  writer,  and  novelist  of 
"Hoosier"  life,  EDWARD  EGGLESTON  (1837-1902).  From 
Indiana,  too,  has  come  the  broadly  popular  work  of  JAMES 
WHITCOMB  RILEY  (1853-),  who,  beginning,  like  Eugene 
Field,  with  journalism,  has  been  chiefly  known  since 
1875  for  Hoosier  lyrics  of  an  admirable  simplicity,  humor, 
and  pathos.  From  a  man  born  in  St.  Louis,  though 
now  resident  in  the  East,  WINSTON  CHURCHILL  (1871-), 
have  lately  come  the  novels  of  American  history,  Richard 
Carvel  (1899),  The  Crisis  (1901),  and  The  Crossing  (1904), 
which  have  been  most  widely  read.  One  might  name 
many  more  industrious  and  worthy  Western  writers;  but 


The  West  419 

they  would  hardly  add  definite  features  to  the  indistinct 
picture. 

The  Pacific  slope,  however,  is  a  region  as  different  from  California, 
the  Middle  West — the  West  of  tradition — as  the  West  is 
from  the  Revolutionary  colonies.  And  California  has 
something  like  a  literature  of  its  own.  Of  the  earlier 
Calif ornian  writers  the  chief  was  certainly  FRANCIS  BRET 
HARTE  (1839-1902).  Born  in  Albany,  New  York,  he 
found  himself  at  the  age  of  fifteen  in  California.  There 
he  taught  school  and  tried  journalism  until  1868,  when  he 
became  editor  of  the  Overland  Monthly.  In  the  second 
number  of  this  journal  was  published  "The  Luck  of  Roar 
ing  Camp."  This,  which  was  speedily  followed  by  "The 
Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat,"  established  Bret  Harte's  reputa 
tion  as  a  writer  of  short  stories.  Only  two  years  later,  in 
1870,  he  attained  similar  success  in  verse  by  writing  "The 
Heathen  Chinee."  Soon  after  this  he  removed  to  the 
East,  whence  he  presently  went  on  to  England,  and  there 
spent  the  rest  of  his  life. 

Bret  Harte  continued  writing  Californian  stories  to  the  Bret  Harte. 
end.  He  never  surpassed  his  beginnings ;  but  he  rarely  fell 
much  below  them.  The  nineteen  volumes  of  his  collected 
works  have  the  unusual  charm  of  such  vitality  and  vivacity 
that  you  can  read  through  volume  after  volume  without 
fatigue.  And  they  record,  in  skilfully  artistic  form,  the 
temper  of  the  days  when  the  bolder  spirits  of  America  were 
reducing  to  their  control  the  lazy  old  Spanish  colony  which 
is  now  among  the  most  American  of  the  United  States. 

Since  Bret  Harte  left  California,  other  writers  there  have  other 
set  forth  similar  and  later  phases  of  Californian  life.     The  writers'"* 
verses  of  JOAQUIN  MILLER  (1841-)—  Songs  0}  the  Sierras 
(1871)  and  his  frequent  later  volumes — have  a  wild  lyric 


420 

quality  rather  Californian  than  Western.  GELETT  BUR 
GESS  (1866-),  editor  of  The  Lark,  and  author  of  the  Pur  pie 
Cow,  has  combined  engaging  nonsense  with  good-natured 
satire  in  a  really  novel  way;  and  WALLACE  IRWIN  (1875-), 
in  the  Love  Sonnets  0}  a  Hoodlum  (1902),  has  humorously 
effected  a  seemingly  impossible  fusion  of  severe  literary 
form  and  feeling  with  the  wildest  extravagance  of  dialect. 
And  California  has  recently  produced  at  least  two  re 
markable  writers  of  fiction.  The  novels  of  FRANK  NORRIS 
(1870-1903),  obviously  modelled  on  those  of  Zola,  have 
startling  power;  and  the  stories  of  Alaska  and  of  the  sea 
by  JACK  LONDON  (1876-),  obviously  modelled  on  the 
style  of  Kipling,  have  power  enough  not  to  seem  un 
worthy  of  their  original. 

Californian  literature,  in  brief,  has  a  quality  which  some 
times  makes  it  seem  singularly  promising.  From  the  con 
ditions  of  life  there,  and  the  expression  which  these  con 
ditions  have  already  evoked,  one  may  expect  work  which 
shall  combine  with  the  freshness  of  feeling  and  the  keen 
sense  of  fact  characteristic  of  America  a  kind  of  emotional 
freedom — of  warm  and  unrestrained  artistic  impulse — 
hitherto  prevented  elsewhere  by  an  intensity  of  moral 
tradition  from  which  the  atmosphere  of  the  Pacific  slope 
is  free.  But  as  yet  this  temper  has  not  reached  any  final 
stage  of  expression. 

Partly  from  Californian  influences,  meanwhile,  partly 
from  Southern,  and  partly  from  those  of  the  East,  there 
has  emerged  the  one  remaining  American  man  of  letters 
who  now  deserves  separate  consideration. 


VII 

MARK  TWAIN 

REFERENCES 

WORKS  :  Mark  Twain's  works,  originally  published  by  Charles  L. 
Webster  &  Co.,  are  now  brought  out  in  a  uniform  edition  by  the  Harpers. 
For  a  list  of  the  titles,  before  1895,  with  dates,  see  Foley,  pp.  50-52. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  CRITICISM  :  For  biography,  see  any  good  dictionary 
of  American  biography ;  for  criticism,  the  magazine  articles  and  reviews, 
which  can  readily  be  found  by  means  of  Poole's  Index. 

SELECTIONS:  Stedman  and  Hutchinson,  IX,  290-307. 

SAMUEL  LANGHORNE  CLEMENS,  "Mark  Twain,"  Life. 
(1835-),  after  an  apprenticeship  to  a  printer,  became  a 
pilot  on  the  Mississippi  River  in  1851.  Later  he  tried 
mining,  and  still  later  journalism,  in  California.  Thence 
he  removed  to  Hawaii,  and  finally  to  Hartford,  Connecti 
cut,  where  he  lived  till  lately.  In  1884  he  founded  the 
publishing  firm  of  C.  L.  Webster  &  Company;  he  lost 
heavily  by  its  failure.  His  subsequent  labor  to  pay  its 
debts  suggests  the  similarly  heroic  efforts  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott.  His  first  book,  The  Jumping  Frog  and  Other 
Sketches,  came  out  in  1867,  Innocents  Abroad  in  1869, 
Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer  in  1876,  Life  on  the  Missis 
sippi  in  1883,  Adventures  of  Huckleberry  Finn  in  1885, 
Pudd'n-head  Wilson  in  1894,  and  Personal  Recollections 
of  Joan  of  Arc  in  1895-1896. 

The  earlier  work  of  Mark  Twain  seemed  broadly  comic  Humor, 
— only  another  manifestation  of  that  rollicking  sort  of 
journalistic  fun  which  is  generally  ephemeral.     As  the 

421 


422 


Scope. 


Historical 
Sense. 


years  have  passed,  however,  he  has  slowly  distinguished 
himself  more  and  more  from  anyone  else.  No  other  living 
writer,  for  one  thing,  so  completely  exemplifies  the  kind  of 
humor  which  is  most  characteristically  American — a 
shrewd  sense  of  fact  expressing  itself  in  an  inextricable 
confusion  of  literal  statement  and  wild  extravagance, 

uttered  with  no  lapse  from 
what  seems  unmoved  gravity  of 
manner. 

But  this  is  by  no  means  the  sum 
of  him,  nor  yet  his  deepest  merit. 
His  more  careful  books  show  a 
grasp  of  his  subject,  a  power  of 
composition  on  the  grand  scale, 
unapproached  by  any  other  pop 
ular  American.  For  all  its  faults 
of  superficial  taste,  and  for  all  its 
extravagance  of  dialect,  Huckle 
berry  Finn  proves,  as  one  com 
pares  it  with  its  rough  material, 
carelessly  collected  in  Life  on  the 
Mississippi,  nothing  short  of  a  masterpiece.  And  it  proves 
as  well,  when  one  has  read  it  over  and  over  again,  to  be 
among  the  few  books  in  any  literature  which  preserve 
something  like  a  comprehensive  picture  of  an  entire  state 
of  society.  In  this  aspect  it  is  Odyssean,  just  as  Don 
Quixote  is.  There  are  moods  when  one  is  tempted  to  call 
it,  despite  its  shortcomings,  the  masterpiece  of  literature  in 
America. 

It  was  this  power  of  construction  on  a  large  scale,  com 
bined  with  profound  human  sympathy,  which  made  more 
than  one  competent  critic  recognize  Mark  Twain's  hand 


Mark  Twain  423 

in  the  originally  anonymous  Personal  Recollections  of  Joan 
of  Arc.  In  this  he  showed  himself  an  historical  novelist 
of  positive  importance.  His  more  recent  work  has  been 
apt  to  have  the  increasing  seriousness  of  his  honorable 
maturity.  He  has  fearlessly  written  of  public  matters, 
and  of  various  social  and  philosophic  follies,  and,  whether 
you  agree  with  him  or  not,  you  cannot  fail  to  recognize  his 
manly  honesty,  his  unbroken  vigor  of  thought  and  phrase, 
and  his  ripe  individuality.  His  persistent  humor  proves 
less  and  less  a  matter  of  wildness  or  extravagance.  It  is  his 
peculiar  method  of  courageously  commenting  on  life. 

And  throughout  his  work  one  finds  innumerable  turns  of  Summary, 
thought  and  of  phrase  which  could  proceed  only  from  one 
whose  whole  being  was  born  and  developed  not  in  one 
part  of  America  or  another,  but  surely  and  only  in  America. 
No  one  was  ever,  in  the  better  sense  of  the  word,  a  more 
instinctive  and  whole-souled  man  of  the  people.  No  one 
was  ever  more  free  from  the  spiritual  vulgarity,  as  dis 
tinguished  from  mere  errors  of  taste,  which  sometimes 
makes  men  of  the  people  seem  coarse.  No  one  was  ever 
more  broadly  human — sometimes  with  a  broadness  which 
the  fastidious  may  lament,  oftener  with  a  breadth  of 
sympathy  which  should  shame  whoever  fails  to  share  it. 
Mark  Twain  is  often  odd,  but  never  eccentric.  There  is 
nowhere  a  sounder  heart  or  a  more  balanced  head  than 
reveal  themselves  throughout  the  work  of  this  man  with 
whom  none  but  Americans  can  quite  feel  complete  fellow 
ship,  and  with  whom  no  true  American  can  fail  to  feel  it. 

Walt  Whitman  has  sometimes  been  called  the  most 
characteristic  of  Americans.  But  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that,  long  after  the  whims  of  Whitman  have  obscured 
what  power  was  in  him,  the  sanity  and  vigor  of  Mark 


ism. 


424 

Twain  will  persistently  show  what  the  American  spirit 
Real  of  his  time  really  and  truly  was.     This  spirit  has  been 

broadly  popular,  odd  in  its  expression,  none  too  reverent 
in  phrase  or  manner,  often  deceptive,  consequently,  to  those 
whom  phrase  and  manner  may  readily  mislead,  but  full 
of  good  sense,  full  of  kindly  humor,  and,  above  all,  eager, 
while  recognizing  all  the  perversities  of  fact,  to  persevere 
towards  righteousness. 


VIII 

CONCLUSION 

IT  is  obviously  too  soon  to  generalize  safely  about  those 
more  recent  phases  of  literature  in  America  on  which  we 
have  just  been  touching.  It  is  not  too  soon,  however, 
to  suggest  some  general  considerations  which  arise  as  we 
consider  the  literary  history  of  America  as  a  whole. 

This  literary  history  of  America  is  the  story,  under  new 
conditions,  of  those  ideals  which  a  common  language  has 
compelled  America,  almost  unawares,  to  share  with  Eng 
land.  These  ideals  which  for  three  hundred  years  Amer 
ica  and  England  have  cherished,  alike  yet  apart,  are  ideals 
of  morality  and  of  government — of  right  and  of  rights. 
General  as  these  phrases  must  seem — common  at  first 
glance  to  the  serious  moments  of  all  men  everywhere — 
they  have,  for  us  of  English-speaking  race,  a  meaning 
peculiarly  our  own.  The  rights  for  which  Englishmen  and 
Americans  alike  have  been  eager  to  fight  and  to  die  are  no 
prismatic  fancies  gleaming  through  clouds  of  conflicting 
logic  and  metaphor;  they  are  that  living  body  of  customs 
and  duties  and  privileges  which  experience  has  proved 
favorable  to  prosperity  and  to  righteousness. 

Threatened  throughout  history,  both  from  without  and 
from  within,  these  rights  can  be  preserved  by  nothing 
short  of  eternal  vigilance.  In  this  we  have  been  faithful, 
until  our  deepest  ideal  of  public  duty,  which  marks  Eng 
lishmen  and  Americans  apart  from  others,  and  side  by  side, 

425 


426  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

is  to  protect  our  ancestral  rights,  not  only  from  invasion 
or  aggression  attempted  by  other  races  than  ours,  but  also 
from  the  internal  ravages  both  of  reaction  and  of  revolu 
tion.  In  loyalty  to  this  conception  of  duty,  the  nobler 
minds  of  England  and  of  America  have  always  been  at 
one.  Though  to  careless  eyes  the  two  countries  have  long 
seemed  parted  by  a  chasm  wider  even  than  the  turbulent 
and  foggy  Atlantic,  the  differences  which  have  kept  Eng 
land  and  America  so  long  distinct  have  arisen  from  no 
more  fatal  cause  than  unwitting  and  temporary  conflicts  of 
their  common  law.  The  origin  of  both  countries,  as  we 
know  them  to-day,  was  the  England  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
with  all  its  spontaneity,  all  its  enthusiasm,  all  its  untired 
versatility.  From  this  origin  England  has  sped  faster  and 
further  than  America.  Throughout  two  full  centuries 
America  and  England  have  consequently  quarrelled, 
with  faithful  honesty,  as  to  just  what  rights  and  liberties 
were  truly  sanctioned  by  the  law  which  has  remained 
common  to  both. 

How  their  native  tempers  began  to  diverge  we  have 
already  seen.  During  the  seventeenth  century  England 
proceeded  from  its  spontaneous,  enthusiastic  Elizabethan 
versatility,  through  the  convulsions  of  the  Civil  Wars,  to 
Cromwell's  Commonwealth;  and  from  the  Common 
wealth  through  the  baseness  of  the  Restoration  and  the  re 
newing  health  of  the  Revolution  of  1688,  to  that  state  of 
parliamentary  government  which  still  persists.  English 
literature  meanwhile  proceeded  from  the  age  of  Shakspere, 
through  the  age  of  Milton,  to  the  age  of  Dryden.  During 
this  same  seventeenth  century — the  century  of  American 
immigration — American  history  felt  no  such  convulsion 
as  the  wars  and  tumults  which  destroyed  Elizabethan 


Conclusion  427 

England.  American  character,  which  from  the  begin 
ning  possessed  its  still  persistent  power  of  absorbing  im 
migration,  accordingly  preserved  much  of  the  spontaneity, 
the  enthusiasm,  and  the  versatility  transported  hither 
from  the  mother-country  when  Virginia  and  New  England 
were  founded.  So  far  as  literature  went,  meantime, 
seventeenth-century  America  expressed  itself  only  in  occa 
sional  historical  records,  and  in  a  deluge  of  Calvinistic 
theology.  Partly  to  these,  and  still  more  to  the  devout 
source  from  which  they  welled,  is  due  the  instinctive  de 
votion  of  America  to  such  ideals  of  absolute  right  and 
truth  as  were  inherent  in  the  passionate  idealism  of  the 
Puritans. 

It  was  here  that  America  most  distinctly  parted  from  the 
mother-country.  In  England,  the  Puritan  Commonwealth, 
with  its  nobly  futile  aspiration  towards  absolute  right,  so 
entwined  itself  about  the  life  of  Cromwell  that  when  he 
died  it  fell.  In  America  a  similar  commonwealth,  already 
deeply  rooted  when  Cromwell  was  still' a  sturdy  country 
gentleman  of  St.  Ives,  flourished  long  after  his  relics  had 
been  cast  out  of  Westminster  Abbey.  Generation  by 
generation,  the  immemorial  custom  of  America,  wherein 
America  has  steadily  discerned  the  features  of  its  ancestral 
rights  and  liberties,  grew  insensibly  to  sanction  more 
abstract  ideals  than  ever  long  persisted  in  England. 

Whoever  will  thus  interpret  the  seventeenth  century 
need  be  at  little  pains  to  understand  the  century  which  fol 
lowed.  The  political  events  of  this  eighteenth  century — 
the  century  of  American  independence — forced  England 
into  prolonged  international  isolation;  and  this,  combined 
with  reactionary  desire  for  domestic  order,  bred  in  British 
character  that  insular  conservatism  still  typified  by  the 


428  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

portly  integrity  of  John  Bull.  English  literature  mean 
while  proceeded  from  the  Addisonian  urbanity  of  Queen 
Anne's  time,  through  the  ponderous  Johnsonian  formality 
which  satisfied  the  subjects  of  George  II,  to  the  masterly 
publicism  of  Burke  and  the  contagious  popularity  of 
Burns. 

Since  eighteenth-century  America  was  politically  free 
from  the  conditions  which  so  highly  developed  the  peculiar 
eccentricities  of  England,  there  is  no  wonder  that  Amer 
ican  character  still  retained  the  spontaneity,  the  enthu 
siasm,  and  the  versatility  of  the  elder  days  when  it  had 
shared  these  traits  with  the  English.  Nor  is  there  any  won 
der  that  Americans  went  on  traditionally  cherishing  the 
fervent  idealism  of  the  immigrant  Puritans,  wherein  for  a 
while  the  ancestral  English  ideals  of  right  and  of  rights 
had  fused.  Unwittingly  lingering  in  its  pristine  state,  the 
native  character  of  America  became  less  and  less  like  the 
character  which  historical  forces  were  irresistibly  mould 
ing  in  the  mother- country.  The  traditional  law  of  Amer 
ica  seemed  on  its  surface  less  and  less  like  the  more  dogged 
and  rigid  system  which  was  becoming  the  traditional  law 
of  England.  Despite  their  common  language,  neither  of 
the  kindred  peoples,  separated  not  only  by  the  wastes  of 
the  ocean  but  also  by  the  forgotten  lapse  of  five  generations, 
could  rightly  understand  the  other.  The  inevitable  result 
was  the  American  Revolution. 

The  same  causes  which  wrought  this  imperial  disunion 
had  tended  to  alter  the  literary  character  of  America. 
American  theology  had  already  evaporated  in  metaphysi 
cal  abstraction ;  its  place,  as  the  principal  phase  of  Ameri 
can  expression,  had  been  taken  by  politics.  Of  this,  no 
doubt,  the  animating  ideal  was  not  so  much  that  of  moral- 


Conclusion  429 

ity  as  that  of  law.  Yet  America  would  not  have  been 
America  unless  these  ancestral  ideals  had  remained 
blended.  A  yearning  for  absolute  truth,  an  unbroken 
faith  in  abstract  ideals,  is  what  makes  distinctly  national 
the  political  utterances  of  the  American  Revolution.  The 
love  of  abstract  right  which  pervades  them  sprang  straight 
from  that  aspiration  towards  absolute  truth  which  had 
animated  the  grim  idealism  of  the  Puritans. 

So  came  the  nineteenth  century — the  century  of  Ameri 
can  nationality,  when,  for  all  their  community  of  language 
and  of  ideals,  England  and  America  have  believed 
themselves  mutually  foreign.  English  history  proceeded 
from  the  extreme  isolation  which  ended  at  Waterloo, 
through  the  constitutional  revolution  of  the  Reform  Bill 
to  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  What  the  future  may  de 
cide  to  have  been  the  chief  features  of  this  Victorian  epoch, 
it  is  still  too  soon  to  assert;  yet  the  future  can  hardly 
fail  to  remember  how,  throughout  these  sixty  and  more 
years,  England  has  continually  developed  in  two  seem 
ingly  divergent  ways.  At  home,  on  the  one  hand,  it  has 
so  tended  towards  democracy  that  already  the  political 
power  of  the  English  masses  probably  exceeds  that  of  the 
American.  In  its  world  relations,  on  the  other  hand, 
England  has  become  imperial  to  a  degree  undreamed  of 
when  Queen  Victoria  ascended  the  throne.  Wherever  the 
influence  of  England  extends  to-day,  democracy  and  em 
pire  go  hand  in  hand. 

Throughout  this  nineteenth  century  America  has  had 
the  Western  Hemisphere  almost  to  itself.  This  it  has 
dominated  with  increasing  material  power,  believing  all  the 
while  that  it  could  keep  free  from  entanglement  with 
other  regions  of  the  earth.  From  this  youthful  dream  it 


430  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

has  at  last  been  rudely  awakened.  In  the  dawning  of  a 
new  century  it  finds  itself — like  England,  at  once  demo 
cratic  and  imperial — inevitably  confronted  with  world- 
conflict;  either  its  ideals  must  prevail,  or  they  must  perish. 
After  three  centuries  of  separation,  then,  England  and 
America  are  once  more  side  by  side.  With  them,  in  union, 
lies  the  hope  of  imperial  democracy. 

It  is  only  during  the  nineteenth  century — the  century  of 
American  nationality — that  America  has  brought  forth 
literature.  First  appearing  in  the  Middle  States,  this  soon 
developed  more  seriously  in  New  England,  whose  mental 
life,  so  active  at  first,  had  lain  comparatively  dormant  for 
almost  a  hundred  years.  These  two  phases  of  American 
literary  expression — that  of  older  New  York  and  that  of 
renascent  New  England — are  the  only  ones  which  may  as 
yet  be  regarded  as  complete.  They  have  been  the  chief 
subject  of  our  study.  On  the  impression  which  they 
have  left  with  us  must  rest  our  estimate  of  what  the  liter 
ature  produced  in  America  has  hitherto  signified. 

To  define  this  impression,  we  may  glance  back  at  what 
the  nineteenth  century  added  to  the  literature  of  England. 
First  came  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  and 
Shelley  and  Keats  and  Byron — a  poetry,  for  all  its  indi 
vidual  variety,  aflame  with  the  spirit  of  world-revolution. 
Then,  just  after  Waterloo,  came  those  bravely  ideal  retro 
spective  romances  which  have  immortalized  the  name  of 
Scott.  The  later  literature  of  England  has  expressed  the 
meanings  of  life  discerned  and  felt  by  men  whose  mature 
years  have  fallen  within  the  democratic  and  imperial  reign 
of  Queen  Victoria.  This  literature  includes  the  great  mod 
ern  novelists — Dickens  and  Thackeray  and  George  Eliot, 
with  their  host  of  contemporaries  and  followers;  it  in- 


Conclusion  431 

eludes  the  poetry  of  Tennyson,  and  of  the  Brownings,  and 
of  more;  it  includes  a  wealth  of  serious  prose,  the  work  of 
Macaulay,  of  Carlyle,  of  Ruskin,  of  Newman,  of  Matthew 
Arnold,  and  of  numberless  others;  it  includes  the  studied 
and  fastidious  refinement  of  Stevenson;  it  still  happily 
includes  the  scope  and  power  of  writers  now  living. 

In  the  nineteenth  century  English  literature  began  with 
a  passionate  outburst  of  aspiring  romantic  poetry;  it 
passed  into  an  era  of  retrospective  romantic  prose;  it  pro 
ceeded  to  a  stage  where,  for  all  the  merit  of  persistent 
poetry,  the  chief  fact  seems  to  have  been  fiction  dealing 
mostly  with  contemporary  life;  its  serious  prose,  all  the 
while,  tended  more  and  more  to  dwell  on  the  problems  of 
the  times;  and  these  surely  underlie  the  utterances  of  its 
latest  masters.  The  more  one  considers  what  the  century 
has  added  to  English  literature,  the  more  one  marvels  at 
its  riches.  Yet  all  the  while  one  grows  aware  of  something 
which,  if  not  a  loss,  is  at  least  a  change.  Throughout 
the  century,  English  letters  have  slowly  lapsed  away  from 
the  grace  of  personal  distinction.  The  literature  of  nine 
teenth-century  England,  like  its  history,  expresses  an 
irresistible  advance  of  democracy. 

Political  democracy,  no  doubt,  declared  itself  earlier  and 
more  outspokenly  in  America  than  in  England.  So  far  as 
literature  is  concerned,  on  the  other  hand,  the  first  thirty 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century  excited  from  America  much 
less  democratic  utterances  than  came  from  the  revolution 
ary  poets  of  the  mother-country.  If  you  doubt  this,  com 
pare  Brockden  Brown  with  Wordsworth,  Irving  with  Cole 
ridge,  Cooper  with  Shelley,  Bryant  with  Byron.  What 
that  earlier  literature  of  the  Middle  States  chiefly  certifies 
of  American  character  is  that,  whatever  our  vagaries  of 


432  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

occasional  speech,  we  are  at  heart  disposed,  with  good  old 
English  common-sense,  to  follow  those  lines  of  conduct 
which  practice  has  proved  safe  and  which  prudence  has 
pronounced  admirable.  The  earlier  literature  of  the 
Middle  States  has  another  trait  which  seems  national: 
its  sensitiveness  of  artistic  conscience  shows  Americans 
generally  to  be  more  alive  to  artistic  duty  than  Englishmen 
have  often  been.  The  first  literary  utterances  of  inexpe 
rienced  America  were  marked  by  no  wildness  or  vagary; 
they  showed,  rather,  an  almost  timid  loyalty  to  the  tra 
ditions  of  excellence. 

A  few  years  later  came  what  so  far  seems  the  nearest 
approach  of  America  to  lasting  literature — the  final  utter 
ances  of  New  England  during  the  years  of  its  Renaissance, 
which,  broadly  speaking,  were  contemporary  with  the  first 
half  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  The  new  life  had  be 
gun,  of  course,  somewhat  earlier.  It  had  first  shown  itself 
in  the  awakening  of  New  England  oratory  and  scholarship, 
and  in  the  ardor  which  stirred  Unitarianism  to  break  the 
fetters  of  Calvinistic  dogma.  Scholarship  bore  fruit  in 
the  later  works  of  the  New  England  historians.  Unitari 
anism  tended,  through  Transcendentalism,  to  militant, 
disintegrating  reform.  Amid  these  freshening  intellectual 
surroundings  appeared  some  men  whose  names  seem  des 
tined  to  live  in  the  records  of  our  literature.  The  chief 
of  these  were  Emerson  and  Whittier  and  Longfellow  and 
Lowell  and  Holmes  and  Hawthorne.  If  you  compare 
them  with  the  writers  who  in  their  time  were  most  emi 
nent  in  England — with  Dickens,  Thackeray,  and  George 
Eliot,  with  Tennyson  and  the  Brownings,  with  Carlyle  and 
Ruskin,  with  Newman  and  Matthew  Arnold — you  can 
hardly  help  feeling  a  difference. 


Conclusion  433 

One  phase  of  this  difference  soon  grows  clear.  Though 
the  writers  of  renascent  New  England  were  generally  better 
in  prose  than  in  poetry — and  thus  resembled  their  Eng 
lish  contemporaries — their  spirit  was  rather  like  that 
which  had  animated  the  fervent  English  poetry  of  a  gener 
ation  before.  Accepting  the  revolutionary  doctrine  that 
human  nature  is  not  evil  but  good,  they  confidently  hoped 
that  illimitable  development  was  at  hand  for  a  humanity 
finally  freed  from  the  shackles  of  outworn  custom.  In 
this  faith  and  hope  the  men  of  the  New  England  Renais 
sance  were  sustained  by  a  fact  never  true  of  any  other 
civilized  society  than  that  from  which  they  sprang.  For 
more  than  two  hundred  years  national  inexperience  had 
protected  American  character  from  such  distortion  as  hu 
man  nature  always  suffers  under  the  pressure  of  dense 
population.  Accordingly,  with  a  justified  enthusiasm,  the 
literary  leaders  of  New  England,  full  of  the  earnest  ideal 
ism  inseparable  from  their  Puritan  ancestry,  and  finally 
emancipated  from  the  dogmas  which  had  reviled  human 
ity,  fervently  proclaimed  democracy.  Here,  at  first,  their 
temper  seems  to  linger  behind  that  of  the  mother-country. 
Such  undimmed  confidence  as  theirs  in  human  nature  was 
beginning  to  fade  from  English  literature  before  the 
death  of  Scott. 

Yet  these  New  England  writers  were  no  mere  exotic  sur 
vivors  of  the  days  when  English  Romanticism  was  fervid. 
They  were  all  true  Americans ;  and  this  they  could  not  have 
been  without  an  almost  rustic  limitation  of  worldly  knowl 
edge,  without  a  shrewd  sense  of  fact  which  should  at  once 
correct  the  errors  of  such  ignorance  and  check  the  vagaries 
of  their  idealism,  or  without  exacting  artistic  conscience. 
Their  devotion  to  the  ideals  of  right  and  of  rights  came 


434  The  Rest  of  the  Story 

straight  from  ancestral  England.  Their  spontaneous  apti 
tude  for  idealism,  their  enthusiastic  love  for  abstractions 
and  for  absolute  truth,  they  had  derived,  too,  from  the 
Elizabethan  Puritans  whose  traits  they  had  hereditarily 
preserved.  What  most  surely  marked  them  apart  was  the 
quality  of  their  eager  faith  in  democracy.  To  them  this 
was  no  untested  dream ;  it  was  rather  a  truth  confirmed  by 
the  national  inexperience  of  their  still  uncrowded  country. 
Hence  sprang  the  phase  of  their  democratic  temper  which 
still  seems  most  precious  and  most  pregnant. 

The  spirit  of  European  democracy  has  been  dominated 
by  blind  devotion  to  an  enforced  equality.  In  many 
American  utterances  you  may  doubtless  find  thoughtless 
assertion  of  the  same  dogma.  Yet  if  you  will  ponder  on  the 
course  of  American  history,  and  still  more  if  you  will  learn 
intimately  to  know  those  more  eminent  American  men  of 
letters  who  remain  our  teachers,  you  must  grow  to  feel 
that  American  democracy  has  a  wiser  temper,  still  its  own. 
The  national  ideal  of  America  has  never  yet  denied  or  even 
repressed  the  countless  variety  of  human  worth  and  power. 
It  has  urged  only  that  men  should  enjoy  liberty  within  the 
range  of  law.  It  has  resisted  both  lingering  and  innovating 
tyranny;  but  all  the  while  it  has  kept  faithful  to  the  prin 
ciple  that,  so  far  as  public  safety  may  permit,  each  of  us 
has  an  inalienable  right  to  strive  for  excellence.  In:  the 
presence  of  approved  excellence  it  has  remained  humble. 

The  history  of  such  future  as  we  can  now  discern 
must  be  that  of  a  growing  world-democracy.  And 
those  who  welcome  this  prospect  are  apt  to  hold  that 
our  most  threatening  future  danger  lurks  in  those 
dogged  systems  of  authority  which  still  strive  to  strangle 
human  aspiration.  No  doubt  these  are  dangerous,  yet 


Conclusion  435 

sometimes  there  must  seem  even  deeper  danger  in  that 
phase  of  democracy  itself  which  hates  and  condemns  ex 
cellence.  If  in  the  conflicts  to  come,  democracy  shall  over 
power  excellence,  or  if  excellence,  seeking  refuge  in  freshly 
imperious  assertion  of  authority,  shall  prove  democracy 
another  futile  dream,  the  ways  before  us  are  dark.  The 
more  one  dreads  such  darkness,  the  more  gleams  of  coun 
sel  and  help  one  may  find  in  the  simple,  hopeful  literature 
of  inexperienced,  renascent  New  England.  There,  for  a 
while,  the  warring  ideals  of  democracy  and  of  excellence 
were  once  reconciled,  dwelling  confidently  together  in 
some  earthly  semblance  of  peace. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Jacob,  194. 

Abbott,  John  S.  C.,  305. 

Adams,  Brooks,  386. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  386. 

Adams,  Henry,  386. 

Adams,  John,  5,  69,  99,  102,  202,  203. 

Adams,  Samuel,  70,  99,  102,  202. 

Addison,  Joseph,  59,  60,  63,  428. 

Alcott,  Amos  Bronson,  247,  267-269, 

273- 

Alcott,  Louisa  May,  194, 392. 

Aldrich,  James,  172. 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  391,  392. 

Allan,  John,  170. 

Allen,  James  Lane,  411. 

Almanacs,  74. 

American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sci 
ences,  212. 

American  Philosophical  Society,  72, 
85,  212. 

American  Revolution,  56,  68,  69,  92- 
97,428. 

Ames,  Fisher,  102. 

Anne,  Queen,  59,  61,  428. 

Anthology  Club,  213,  241. 

Anthon,  Charles,  172. 

Antislavery,  250,  275-288. 

Atlantic  Monthly,  298-304,  324,  330, 
355,35s, 39°, 392,396- 

Austen,  Jane,  118,  159. 

Bacon,  Francis,  2,  29,  35,  70. 
Bancroft,  George,  222,  223. 
Barlow,  Joel,  106,  107. 
Bartlett,  Sidney,  335. 
Bates,  Arlo,  393. 
"Bay  Psalm  Book,"  33,  36,  37. 
Beecher,  Lyman,  285. 
Beverley,  Robert,  73. 


Bible,  2,  3,  19,  20,  76. 

Blackstone,  Sir  William,  68, 100. 

Blair,  Robert,  167. 

Blenheim,  battle  of,  54,  55. 

Bogart,  Elizabeth,  172. 

Boker,  George  Henry,  181, 369. 

Boston  Athenaeum,  213,  241. 

Boston  News  Letter,  74. 

Boswell,  James,  62,  205. 

Bowdoin  College,  285,  305,  306,  340. 

Bradford,  Governor  William,  23,  28, 

34,35,46,214. 
Bradstreet,  Mrs.  Anne,  33,  39,  40 

101. 

Briggs,  Charles  Frederick,  172. 
Brook  Farm,  250-252,  263. 
Brooks,  Phillips,  385. 
Brown,  Charles  Brockden,  129-135 

155,  156,  157,  159,  161,  168,  180, 

183,  184,  220,  232,  240,  347,  349, 

43i- 

Brown,  Thomas  Dunn,  172. 
Browne,  Charles  Farrar,  415, 416. 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  20. 
Browning,    Elizabeth   Barrett,    120, 

i73,346,43i- 

Browning,  Robert,  120,  431. 
Brownson,  Orestes  Augustus,  248. 
Bryant,    William    Cullen,    158-168, 

169,  171,  181,  183,  184,  232,  240, 

316,321,431. 

Bunner,  Henry  Cuyler,  366,  367. 
Burgess,  Gelett,  420. 
Burke,  Edmund,  59,  62,  63,  69,  70, 

93,428. 

Burnett,  Mrs.  Frances  Hodgson,  367. 
Burns,  Robert,  62, 100,  428. 
Burr,  Aaron,  77. 
Burton,  Robert,  20, 49. 


437 


438 


Index 


Bush,  George,  172. 
Butler,  Samuel,  104,  106. 
Byron,  Lord,  118,  119,  142,  159,  430, 
431- 

Cable,  George  Washington,  411. 
Calhoun,  John  Caldwell,  403. 
Calvin,  John,  14,  15. 
Calvinism,  13,  75,  80,  81,  82,  91,  230- 

232,233,338,339- 
Canada,  116. 
Carey,  Henry,  172. 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  171,  224,  244,  255, 

346,  43  !• 

Century  Magazine,  358.  364. 
Channing,  Edward  Tyrrell,  160,  213. 
Channing,  William  Ellery,  218,  229- 

230,  231.  234,  235,  241,  242,  277. 
Channing,  William  Ellery,  the  young 
er,  247,  248. 

Channing,  William  Henry,  247,  248. 
Charles  I,  n,  23. 
Charles  II,  u. 
Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  1,3. 
Cheever,  George  Barrell,  172. 
Cherbury,  Lord  Herbert  of,  16,  29. 
Child,  Francis  James,  388. 
Child,  Lydia  Maria,  172, 173. 
Choate,  Rufus,  207,  299. 
Churchill,  Winston,  418. 
Clark,  Lewis  Gaylord,  172,  173,  180, 

181. 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  248. 
Clay,  Henry,  403. 
Clemens,    Samuel    Langhorne,    90, 

421-424. 
Coleridge,    Samuel   Taylor,    62,    63, 

118,  119,  155,  159,  244,  430,  431. 
Colton,  George  Hooker,  172. 
Columbia  University,  72. 
Columbus  Magazine,  129. 
Common  Law  of  England,  5,  15,  16, 

27,  55,  56,  57,  58,  66,  76,  116,  117, 

122. 

Copley,  John  Singleton,  196, 197. 
Cooke,  John  Esten,  403,  404. 
Cooper,  James  Fenimore,    148-157, 

161,  168,  183,  184,  232,  321,  431. 
Cotton,  John,  24,  29,  34, 42. 


Cowper,  William,  62,  167, 183. 
Craddock,  Charles  Egbert,  410-411. 
Cranch,    Christopher    Pearse,    172, 

247. 

Crawford,  Francis  Marion,  398. 
Croaker  Papers,  162. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  n,  12,  426,  427. 
Curtis,    George   William,    181,   252, 

360,  363. 

Dana,  Charles  Anderson,  252,  360, 

362. 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  160. 
Dartmouth  College,  203,  207,  328. 
Davis,  Richard  Harding,  367. 
Defoe,  Daniel,  18,  59, 61. 
Deland,  Margaret,  392, 393. 
De  Quincey,  Thomas   159,  303. 
Derby,  George  Horatio,  414,  415. 
Dial,    245-250,  251,  268,  278,  298, 

299. 
Dickens,  Charles,  120,  138,  171,  346, 

43°- 

Dickinson,  Emily,  391. 
Dickinson,  John,  96. 
Dobson,  Austin,  336. 
Dooley,  Mr.,  416, 417. 
Drake,  Joseph  Rodman,  162. 
Dryden,  John,  18,  19,  21,  22,  35,  49, 

50,59,63,64,426. 
Dudley,  Governor  Joseph,  40. 
Dudley,  Governor  Thomas,  24,  39. 
Dunne,  Finley  Peter,  416, 417. 
Duyckinck,  Evert  Augustus,  172. 
Dwight,  John  Sullivan,  252. 
Dwight.  Timothy,  102-104. 

Eaton,  Theophilus,  46. 
Edinburgh  Review,  213. 
Edwards,  Jonathan,  75,  76,  77-82, 

87,  r95,  231,  236. 
Eggleston,  Edward,  418. 
Eliot,  Charles  William,  389,  390. 
Eliot,  George,  120, 346, 430. 
Eliot,  John,  29,  36. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  n,  15,  23,  29,  50, 

54,426. 
Elizabethan  traits,  17,  20,  22,  30,  48, 

58,  64. 


Index 


439 


Embury,  Emma  C.,  172. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  171,  206. 
246,  248,  250,  254-265  270,  271, 
272,  273,  299,  300,  301,  303,  321, 

338»  35°,  432. 
Endicott,  Governor,  29. 
Everett,  Edward,  205-207,  216,  222, 

241,255,299. 

Federalist,  100, 102, 109,  no. 

Field,  Eugene,  417. 

Fields,  James  Thomas,  181,  303,  304 

39i- 

Fiske,  John,  387. 
Fontenoy,  battle  of,  54,  55. 
Fourier,  251. 
France,  wars  of  England  with,  54- 

58- 

Francis,  John  Wakefield,  172. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  72,  73,  74,  76, 

83-91,  189,  199,  212,  413. 

Freeman,  James  232. 

French  ideals,  26,  27. 

French  power  in  America,  26,  66,  67. 

French  Revolution,  57, 114. 

Freneau,  Philip,  108, 109,  no. 

Fruitlands,  268. 

Fuller,  Henry  Blake,  417,418. 

Fuller,    Sarah   Margaret,    172,    173, 

245,  246,  247,  250,  268,  299,  312, 

360. 

Fuller,  Thomas,  18,  20,  49. 
Furness,  Horace  Howard,  369. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  278,  279, 

290. 
Gayarre,    Charles    Etienne   Arthur, 

403,404- 

Gentleman's  Magazine,  170. 
George  I,  53. 

George  II,  40,  53,  60,  428. 
George  III,  53,  54,  56, 94, 113. 
George  IV,  113. 
Gibbon,  Edward,  62,  219,  227. 
Gilder,  Richard  Watson,  365. 
Gillespie,  William  M.,  172. 
Godey's  Lady's  Book,  169, 179. 
Godkin,  Edwin  Lawrence,  363. 


Godwin,  Parke,  160. 

Godwin,  William,  62, 131,  183.- 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  60,  141,  142,  183. 

Gove,  Mary,  172. 

Graham's  Magazine,  171, 180. 

Grant,  Robert,  393. 

Gray,  Thomas,  60, 167. 

Great  Awakening,  67,  69. 

Greeley,  Horace,  246,  359, 360. 

Hakluyt's  Voyages,  18,  20,  35. 
Hale,  Edward  Everett,  194,  383,  384. 
Halleck,  Fitz-Greene,  162,  163,  172, 

181 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  99, 102. 
Harbinger,  251. 
Harper's  Magazine,  358. 
Harper's  Monthly,  363,  364. 
Harper's   New  Monthly  Magazine, 

355- 

Harper's  Weekly,  355,  358. 
Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  411. 
Harte,  Francis  Bret,  419. 
Hartford  Wits,  102-107, 109,  no. 
Harvard,  23,  40,  42,  44,  45,  46,  68, 

72,     IOI,     192,    2O6,    2II-2I2,    2l6, 
2l8,    222,    255,    269,    282,    283,    306, 

3i5»  327,  328,  332-334,  389,  39°- 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  135,  171,  250, 

3°3,  3°5,  32I>  340-35°,  432- 
Hayne,  Paul  Henry,  403,  405,  406 
Hayne,  Robert  Young,  403. 
Hedge,  Frederic  Henry,  248. 
Henry,  Patrick,  102. 
Herrick,  Robert,  418. 
Hewitt,  Mary  E.,  172. 
Higginson,  Thomas  Wentworth,  383, 

384- 

Hildreth,  Richard.  223. 
Hoffman,  Charles  Fenno,  172,  173. 
Holland,  Josiah  Gilbert,  364,  365. 
Holmes,  Abiel,  327  328. 
Holmes,    Oliver   Wendell,    60,    171. 

181,  303,  321,  327-339,  4i3,  432- 
Home  Journal,  182. 
Hooker,  Richard,  2,  20,  35. 
Hooker,  Thomas.  24,  34,  79. 
Hopkinson,  Francis,  96. 
Howe,  Julia  Ward,  382,  383,  384. 


440 


Index 


Howells,    William    Dean,    395-397, 

398. 

Hoyt,  Ralph,  172. 
Hume,  David,  60, 61. 
Humor,  89,  90, 141,413-417. 
Hunt,  Freeman,  172. 
Hutchinson,  Annie,  46. 
Hutchinson,  Thomas,  70,  75,  76,  102, 

215- 

Ideals,  English,  of  Right  and  Rights, 

5,6. 

Indian  Empire,  56. 116. 
Irving,   Washington,    135,    136-147, 

155,  156,  157,  161,  167,  168,  181, 

183,    184,    222,    232,    3^1,    346,    348, 

349,  413,  431. 
Irving,  William,  137. 
Irwin,  Wallace,  420. 

James  I,  n. 

James  II,  n,  53. 

James,  Henry  (1811-1882),  388. 

James,  Henry  (1843-),  397.  398- 

James,  William,  388. 

Jay,  John,  99, 100,  102. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  99,  102,  121,  160, 

402. 

Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  194,  392. 
John  Bull,  58, 114,  351,427,428. 
Johnson,  Captain  Edward,  35. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  59,  60,  61,  63,  205, 

428. 
Jonson,  Ben,  18,  22,  24. 

Keats.  John,  109,  118,  159,  162. 
Kennedy,  John  Pendleton,  403,  404. 
Kirkland,  Caroline  Matilda,  172. 
Kirkland,  William,  172. 
Knickerbocker,  180,  183. 
Knickerbocker  Gallery,  181, 185. 
Knickerbocker  School,  179-185,  232. 

Lamb,  Charles,  62,  63,  75. 
Landor,  Walter  Savage,  62,  63. 
Lanier,  Sidney,  403,  407-410. 
Larcom,  Lucy,  194,  392. 
Lawson,  James,  172. 
Lea,  Henry  Charles,  369. 


Lee,  Robert  Edward,  123. 

Lewis,  ''Monk,"  62,  131. 

Liberator,  278,  279,  291. 

Life,  358. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  287,  288. 

Literati,  169, 172-175. 

Locke,  David  Ross,  416. 

Locke,  John,  21,  245. 

Locke,  Richard  Adams,  172. 

Logan,  James,  73. 

London, Jack, 420. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  171, 

181,  303    305-314,  315,  318,  319, 

321,  326,  341,432. 
Longstreet,  Augustus  Baldwin,  403, 

404. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  171,  181,  193, 

213,  276,  303,  315-326,  335,  413, 

432- 

Loyalists,  93. 

Lynch,  Anne  Charlotte,  172. 
Lyrical  Ballads,  118,  155,  157  240. 

Macaulay,  Thomas  Babington,  171, 

219,  346,  431. 
Madison,  James,  99,  102. 
Mahan,  Alfred  Thayer,  366. 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  16, 19,  29,  55, 

S6- 

Maroncelli,  Piero,  172. 
Marshall,  John,  100,  102,  403. 
Mary,  Queen,  wife  of  William  III,  1 1. 
Mary  Stuart,  24. 
Massachusetts     Historical     Society, 

212. 
Mather,  Cotton,  29,  34,  41,  42-49, 

68,  76,  87,  101,  189,  192,  199,  214, 

254,  255,  328. 
Mather,  Increase,  29,  40,  41,  42,  43, 

189. 

Mather,  Richard,  24,  29,  36,  42. 
Matthews,  Brander,  366. 
Methodism,  67,  68. 
Miller,  "  Joaquin,"  419,  420. 
Milton,  John,  18.  19,  20,  35,  50,  59, 

63,  426. 

Mitchell,  Silas  Weir,  369. 
Mitchill,  Samuel  Latham,  139. 
Monroe  Doctrine,  122. 


Index 


441 


Moody,  William  Vaughan,  418. 

Moore,  Thomas,  63,  159. 

Morris,  George  Pope,  182. 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  99. 

Morton,  Nathaniel,  35. 

Motley,  John  Lothrop,  223-225,  232, 

299,  338. 
Mowatt,  Anna  Cora,  172. 

Napoleon,  55, 114, 122, 301. 

Nation,  358,  363. 

Nelson,  Lord,  54,  55,  56,  113, 

New  England  Magazine,  330. 

New  England  Primer,  33. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  21,  29. 

New  York  Evening  Post,  159,  162, 

164,  184,  356. 

New  York  Mirror,  182,  183. 
New  York  Sun,  252,  362. 
New  York  Times,  362. 
New  York  Tribune,  184,  246,  252, 

356,  359,  36°.  36l»  36a>  363- 
Nile,  battle  of  the,  54,  55,  113,  114. 
Norris,  Frank,  420. 
North  American  Review,   160,   206, 

213,  218,  224,  241,  246,  298,  299, 

324,  358,  390. 
Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  213,  389. 

Odell,  Jonathan,  97. 
Osborn,  Laugh  ton,  172. 
Osgood,  Frances  Sargent,  172, 174. 
Otis,  James,  95,  96, 102,  202. 
Outlook,  358. 

Page,  Thomas  Nelson,  410. 
Paine,  Thomas,  62. 
Palfrey,  John  Gorham,  223. 
Palmer,  George  Herbert,  388. 
Parker,  Theodore,  247,  281,  282,  299 

321. 
Parkman,    Francis,    225,    226,    232, 

299. 

Paulding,  James  Kirke,  137,  161. 
Peabody,  Andrew  Preston,  213. 
Peabody,  Elizabeth,  248. 
"Pennsylvania  Farmer,"  96. 
Pepperell,  Sir  William,  66. 
Pepys,  Samuel,  16,  29. 


Periodicals,  74. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  282,  283,  299. 
Phillips,  Willard,  160. 
Phips,  Sir  William,  29,  46,  66. 
Pierce,  Franklin,  305, 341. 
Pierrepont,  Sarah,  78,  79. 
Pinckney,  Edward  Coate,  403. 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  135,  169-178,  179, 
183,  184,  185,  232,  312,  321,  346, 

347.  348,  349- 
Pope,  Alexander,  28,  59. 
Prescott,  William  Hickling,  218,  220 

222,  232,  299. 
Prince,  Thomas,  214,  215. 
Princeton  College,  72. 
Puck,  358. 
Putnam  s  Magazine,  358,  363. 

Quarterly  Review,  159,  213. 
Quebec,  battle  of,  54,  55,  56. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  193. 

Radcliffe,  Anne,  62, 131. 

Ralegh,  Sir  Walter,  2,  16,  19,  24,  29, 

35,  i°8- 

Rambler,  60. 

Raymond,  Henry  Jarvis,  362. 

Reform  Bill,  114,  115,  118,  120,  429. 

Revolution  of  1688,  26,  426. 

Rhodes,  James  Ford,  386. 

Right  and  Rights.      See  Ideals,  Eng 
lish. 

Riley,  James  Whitcomb,  418. 

Ripley,  George,  247,  252,  360. 

"Rollo  Books,"  194. 

Ropes,  John  Codman,  386. 

Royce,  Josiah,  388. 

Rumford,  Count,  212. 

Ruskin,  John,  171  346, 431. 

Salmagundi,  137. 

Sandys,  George,  24,  33, 402. 

Santayana,  George,  388. 

Sargent,  Epes,  172. 

Saxe,  John  Godfrey,  181. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  62,  118,  119,  120, 

15°,  151    iSS,  157,  iS9,  183,  184, 

240,  430. 
Scribner's  Magazine,  358. 


442 


Index 


Scribner's  Monthly,  364. 
Seabury,  Samuel,  96,  97. 
Sedgemoor,  battle  of,  53. 
Sedgwick,  Catherine  Maria,  172. 
Sewall,  Samuel,  28,  29,  191,  214,  277. 
Seward,  William  Henry,  181. 
Shakspere,  William,  2,  3,  18,  19,  24, 

35.  5°,  59.  63,  257,  3OI>  4*6. 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  118,  119,  142, 

159,240,430. 
Shelley,  Mrs.,  159. 
Shepard,  Thomas,  34,  47. 
Sibley,  John  Langdon,  44. 
Sill,  Edward  Rowland,  391. 
Simms,  William  Gilmore,  403,  404, 

405- 

Smith,  Captain  John,  33,  402. 
Smith  Professorship,  216,  306,  307, 

3rS,  3l6- 
Southern   Literary    Messenger,    170, 

180,  403. 

Southern  Quarterly  Review,  403. 
Southern  Review,  403. 
Spain,  144—145. 

Spanish  literature,  164,  217,  218. 
Sparks,  Jared,   213,   218,   219,   220, 

221,235. 

Spectator,  61,  74,  86,  roo,  103,  104. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  2,  3,  24. 
Springfield  Republican,  364. 
Stedman,  Edmund  Clarence,  310- 

3".335,336,337>36i,3°2. 
Stamp  Act,  68. 
Standish,  Myles,  29. 
Stephens,  Anne  S.,  172. 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  120,  431. 
Stimson,  Frederic  Jesup,  393. 
Stockton,  Frank  Richard,  367. 
Stoddard,  Solomon,  77. 
Stoughton,  Governor  William,  29. 
Stowe,   Harriet  Beecher,    193,   284- 

287,  299. 

Stuart,  Gilbert,  198. 
Sullivan,  Thomas  Russell,  393. 
Sumner,  Charles,  283,  284,  299,  312. 

Taller,  60,  74,  100. 

Taxation  without  representation,  93, 
94- 


Taylor,  Bayard,  181,  360,  361. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  18,  20. 

Tennyson,   Alfred   Lord,    120,    173, 

346,  431. 
Thackeray,     William      Makepeace, 

120,  171,  336,  346,  430. 
Thaxter,  Celia,  391. 
Thoreau,   Henry   David,   247,   269- 

274,277,299,303. 
Ticknor,  George,  215-218,  221,  222 

232,  299,  306,  316,  326. 
Timrod,  Henry,  403,  406,  407. 
Trafalgar,  battle  of,  55, 114. 
Transcendentalism,  239-253,  432. 
Trumbull,  John,  104-106. 
Tuckerman,  Henry  Theodore,  181. 
Tudor,  William,  213. 
Tyler,  Moses  Coit,  95. 

Unitarianism,  229-238,432. 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  72,  85. 
University  of  Virginia,  170. 

Verplanck,  Gulian  Crommelin,  172. 

Very,  Jones,  247. 

Victoria,  Queen,  114,  115,  345,  346, 

429,  430,  432. 
Virginia  Colony,  23,  25. 

Wallace,  Lew,  418, 

War  of  1812,  122. 

Ward,  Nathaniel,  37,  38. 

Ware,  Henry,  233,  255. 

Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  364. 

Washington,  George,  69,  102,  123. 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  55,  114,  118,  119. 

Webb,  George,  73. 

Webster,  Daniel,  203-205,  207,  241, 
295,  296,  299. 

Welde,  Thomas,  36. 

"Westchester  Farmer."  See  Sea- 
bury,  Samuel. 

Wharton,  Edith,  367. 

White,  Richard  Grant,  365. 

Whitefield,  George,  67,  68,  88. 

Whitman,  Walt,  371-378,  423. 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  163,  193, 
289-297,299  303,313,321,432. 

Wigglesworth,  Michael,  38,  39. 


Index  443 

Wilkins,  Mary  Eleanor,  194,  392.  Wirt,  William,  403. 

William  III,  4,  n,  21,  29.  50,  53,  54.  Wister,  Owen,  369. 

William  IV,  113,  114,  115.  Witchcraft,  Salem,  29. 

Williams  Roger,  24,  29,  46,  70.  Wolfe,  General,  54,  66. 

Williams  College,  160.  Wood,  William,  35. 

Willis,  Nathaniel  Parker,   172,  173,  Woodberry,  George  Edward,  366. 

181-184,  I8s,  232,  321.  Woodworth,  Samuel,  161. 

Winslow,  Edward,  24,  35.  Woolman,  John,  75. 

Winsor,  Justin,  385.  Wordsworth,  William,  62,  63,   118, 
Winthrop,  Governor  John,  24,  28,  29,  119,  142,  155,  167,  183,430,431. 

34,35»46,  70,214- 

Winthrop,  Professor  John,  212.  Yale  College,  68,  72,  101,  102,  104, 
Winthrop,  Robert  Charles,  208,  232.          149. 


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